


A Different, Different Kind of Light

by onArete



Series: Competent Women [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Other, Refuge, Ren backstory!!!!!, The Eleventh Hour, competent women all around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2020-12-31 01:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21038693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onArete/pseuds/onArete
Summary: Myrensi Mol'diira has been told every single day of her life to be grateful, to praise Lolth for making her be born in Relonar instead of the highest cities of the Underdark.  There, the Priestesses tell her, marauding villains come from the surface to steal away babies in the night.  There are people who know how to cast Sunlight.  There is everything that Myrensi is not allowed, is everything that Myrensi will never become.---Ren stumbles out of the Underdark and into the hearts of Refuge's citizens.  She lives and dies almost four thousand times.  And with just the slightest tug on a thread of Fate, she becomes so much more than she ever thought she would.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello! and welcome to this fic! I'm very, very excited about it and hope you are as well. this fic is completed, and will be updated Mondays and Wednesdays
> 
> please note that chapter one deals with a small amount of non-explicit, non-graphic child abuse. stay safe, and if that will be a problem for you to read, just skip to chapter two
> 
> thank you all for reading!

Myrensi Mol'diira has been told every single day of her life to be  _ grateful _ , to praise Lolth for making her be born in Relonar instead of the highest cities of the Underdark.  _ There _ , the Priestesses tell her, marauding villains come from the surface to steal away babies in the night.  _ There _ , are people who know how to cast  _ Sunlight _ .  _ There _ is everything that Myrensi is not allowed, is everything that Myrensi will never become.

After all, Myrensi is an  _ Acolyte _ . Her parents-- two drow her gave her form and being and the name Mol'diira and nothing else--  _ also  _ gave her to the temple of Lolth when she was four days old.

“You should be  _ proud _ to be an Acolyte,” says one of the temple Priestesses, a tall and middle-aged drow woman whose name Myrensi doesn’t know, even though she’s lived at the temple for as long as she can remember. She sits in the underground courtyard, perfectly still, with two dozen other young drow. All girls, none older than ten. It is Convocation, it is a nightly ritual. The Acolytes have grown and fought together, protected each other, laughed and cried side by side. 

None of them can remember a time before the temple of Lolth.

“You should not yearn to look beyond this cave,” continues the Priestess, motioning dramatically, her cape swinging. “Only those of you who are sent to conduct services for the masses will leave. The rest of you should be  _ grateful _ . You should be  _ grateful  _ to our most magnificent goddess, Lolth, for raising you out of the  _ drudgery  _ of the  _ masses _ .”

This Priestess talks about the masses a lot, and their drudgery. Myrensi is six years old and she is  _ fiercely  _ grateful that Lolth kept her from being one of the drudges. 

The priestess raises her staff into the air. Every Acolyte looks up at it-- they can’t help it. The orb it cradles is a gift from  _ Lolth herself _ and it sparkles in the way that only radiant, godly boons could possibly do. It’s white, almost milky, and reflects the same way spider eyes do when they’re hit with light. 

Myrensi knows that her expression is supposed to be neutral, but she can’t help but gasp when the orb lights from the inside.

And then, for one moment, there is something like bliss. The orb  _ throws  _ it’s light out over the faces of the Acolytes who make up the crowd.

(Myrensi knows that this is supposed to be a punishment, knows that this  _ is  _ punishment, because Haelra wasn’t tidy with the mushroom farm. But gods below, in that moment where the light is suspended in the air, it is  _ beautiful _ .)

And then the light-- beautiful and terrible, just like Lolth, just a punishment and a reminder of how the Acolytes are supposed to be  _ better _ , supposed to be the  _ best _ \-- then the light hits Myrensi’s face.

She’s not the only Acolyte who screams.

The Acolytes have grown up together: they have matching scars across their faces, splayed across cheek-nose-lips, from nightly Convocation. From the light that burns them. Every Priestess-- every person that Myrensi has ever seen-- wears the same defining scar. Marking them  _ Lolth’s _ .

There are cheers as the light fades and the courtyard plunges back into darkness.

“Lolth expects greatness from her Acolytes!” shouts the Priestess. The Acolytes’ cheers silence. “She expects greatness from  _ you _ . It will be  _ your  _ duty to protect our people from suffering from the light as only  _ you  _ have experienced!”

The starburst scar on the Priestess’s own face matches Myrensi’s almost exactly. She’s not alone: she never has been. Yes there is light, but there are also the Acolytes-- her  _ friends _ \-- Haelra and Quirin and Llocryl and the baby of the bunch, two-year-old Achavra-- and the Priestesses. There is always Lolth, her loving goddess. 

It’s not a family but it sure is something.

And if Myrensi is sure of anything, it’s that she’s  _ never _ alone.

\---

“Go meditate,” says Llocryl, bored. She is the oldest of their little friend group at a domineering sixteen, and she leaves the temple of Lolth in five weeks to go and work at another temple. She thinks she’s  _ very _ old, but Myrensi knows better. They say the High Priestess is over seven hundred.

“I don’t wanna,” says Quirin, flopping down onto her meditation mat, and tucking a flyaway piece of silver hair behind her pointed, elven ear.

“Me neifer!” shouts Achavra, running into the large room their group of five Acolytes sleeps in. Right behind her is Haelra, keeping a steady hand behind Achavra and her unsteady toddler legs.

“I didn’t ask if you  _ wanted to _ ,” says Llocryl, closing the book of scripture she’s been reading with a  _ snap _ . “I told you to go meditate.”

“Aw, be nice, Llo-llo,” says Haelra. She is fifteen and she and Llocryl are close, closer than Acolytes are supposed to be. Not because there’s a  _ problem _ with that-- it’s just that Acolytes usually go to different temples when they’re good enough at clerical magic, and romantic relationships have apparently messed things up in the past.

But Llocryl isn’t the kind of girl to care about that, and Haelra is all too ready to encourage it. Quirin makes faces when they kiss, but Myrensi knows this is just because she’s bored and wants to do stuff with her friends.

As for her? Myrensi thinks it’s sweet.

Except that whenever Haelra and Llocryl are together they make Myrensi and Quirin watch the baby, and Quirin hates watching the baby, and gods  _ below  _ does Achavra have a lot of energy. Myrensi refuses to just let her run wild like some of the other Acolyte groups do with their babies.  _ She  _ doesn’t know anything about her Acolyte group, can’t remember them ever being anything more than grudgingly tolerant and doing the bare minimum until she was old enough to take care of herself.

Achavra, Myrensi has decided, will have a much better experience than she did. Achavra, she has decided, will know that they love her.

Even if love isn’t really something that’s encouraged. Not among the Acolytes.

\---

The Acolytes spend most of their time in the main temple of Lolth, at Convocation, at prayers, cleaning the alters. But the spread of tunnels below the temple that houses the Acolytes has plenty to do, as well. There are chore charts, and each Acolyte plays her part.

Some sweep the halls of the temple late at night when the congregants have left, gone back into the city.

Others work at the mushroom farms that provide most of their food. That’s Haelra’s favorite chore, but Myrensi hates how low the ceiling is.

No, her favorite chore isn’t the mushroom farm.  _ Myrensi  _ loves the  _ dining hall _ .

It’s less of a hall and more of the most spacious cavern that opens out of the tunnels beneath the temple, but eh, it works. There’s a kitchen in the back that’s run by one of the older Acolytes-- a seventeen-year old named Ianawe-- who rules the meals with an iron fist. There’s always a meal schedule, and  _ nobody  _ is allowed to change the recipes.

But Myrensi doesn’t mind. Cooking is still so,  _ so  _ much  _ better  _ than all the other chores--

See, all  _ those  _ jobs just make you fix what’s already there. Clean up the dust that the citizens of Relonar tracked into the temple. Pick the mushrooms that the ground and Lolth’s blessing grew. But  _ cooking _ \-- when you  _ cook _ , you  _ create _ . You make something new entirely. Something that didn’t exist in the world before you,  _ wouldn’t  _ have existed without you.

Myrensi doesn’t really have a name for the way cooking makes her feel, but it’s her favorite chore.

She trades cobweb duty with Quirin as often as possible to keep herself working in the kitchen as much as she possibly can.

(Making new things is  _ enthralling _ .)

\---

“We begin  _ lessons _ tomorrow,” says Quirin, a head taller than Myrensi but the same age. The two Acolytes shared a mat at night when they were smaller, even entered the temple-- according to the Priestess in charge of the Acolytes, the same one who teaches their lessons and runs Convocation-- on the very same day. It’s  _ basically _ by Lolth’s design that they’re best friends. “Are you  _ prepared _ ?”

The two girls are walking down the steep hallway towards their quarters. Bioluminescent purple moss glows from the walls. Myrensi’s dark purple robe is perfectly pressed, and her steps are as even as her voice. “Yes, I am. I would  _ never _ be unprepared to serve our  _ wonderful _ goddess,  _ Lolth _ .”

They reach the end of the hall. Quirin sweeps aside a hanging curtain of some sort of moss, and Myrensi ducks under, exhaling. Quirin follows her, with a quiet laugh, her ears flicking up with amusement.

“Just be honest, ‘Rensi,” she says, stretching her arms above her head and almost touching the ceiling of the cave, “ _ Is  _ my self-important Priestess act getting better?”

“You just gotta do the lip thing,” says Myrensi with a laugh, her ears flicking, following behind her friend as they wind their way through this part of the hall. They’re officially out of the temple and in their quarters-- although it’s not like there’s another way  _ out  _ of the Acolyte quarters. The whole temple of Lolth is built into a crevice coming out from the huge cavern that forms their home city of Relonar. And the Acolyte’s quarters are in the furthest and deepest part, like spider eggs, scurried away to the safest part of the cave. 

Quirin turns back to her, exaggerating stretching her lips so her pointed teeth can’t be seen. “We  _ begin _ lessons  _ tomorrow _ ,” she says again, mimicking the mincing words and too-proper, lilting accent of one of the Priestesses.

(Acolytes get names. Priestesses do, too, but the Acolytes don’t get to know them. So this Priestess is called-- in murmured conversation and muffled laugher--  _ Self _ . Because she’s so self-important. It’s  _ funny _ !)

It’s so funny that Myrensi  _ loses it _ , doubling over forwards, laughing. Quirin just looks so  _ ridiculous _ \-- and doing the lip thing that Self always does stretches out her starburst scar to hilarious proportions. And besides, they’re out of the temple. There is nobody in the tunnels beneath it that lead to the Acolyte quarters who will punish Myrensi for laughing, and Quirin would never turn her in.

Best friends, remember?

“Really, though,” she says, once she manages to stop laughing. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Of course I am,” says Quirin, her silver eyebrows raising, making her seem taller than she already is. Myrensi stifles a giggle. “I’ve been waiting to learn clerical magic basically since I  _ got  _ here. You ready?”

Myrensi shrugs, her ears flicking back with embarassment. “I’m excited to learn magic. It’s just...”

“The cantrip thing,” Quirin says, understanding.

“I’m sure it’ll be better when it’s actual magic  _ teaching _ ,” Myrensi reasons. She has no reason to hide her fears around Quirin. They’re basically sisters. “It’s just... I dunno. I wish they’d tell us  _ why  _ Mending works? Or  _ how  _ it works?”

“Maybe you can’t do magic,” muses Quirin, who picked up the Mending cantrip two years ago from one of the older Acolytes, a friendly girl named Dhuaral who left the temple a couple months ago to work at another one of Lolth’s temples in some city called Oli’iom. “Maybe you’re supposed to be a  _ barbarian _ .”

Myrensi makes a face at her. “Ew! Do I  _ look  _ like a barbarian?!”

She knows that she’s short, knows that she’s well-built. But it’s not like Myrensi’s  _ muscular _ , not more so than any of the other Acolytes who walk leagues every day through the maze of tunnels beneath the temple that connect them to their quarters.

“I’m just teasing you,” says Quirin with a huff. “You’ll be  _ fine _ . You’re good at everything else.”

“I just really wanna learn magic.” Myrensi feels like she’s done something wrong but has no idea what it could possibly be.

“Yeah, yeah, you will. We’ll get there and Self will be like ‘okay, time to learn Power Word Kill,’ and ten minutes later you’ll have mastered it and Minril will be  _ dead _ .”

“Hey!” she protests. “I  _ like  _ Minril.”

“Then why don’t  _ you _ have a spider?” asks Quirin as her pet spider-- adopted from cobweb duty, and about the size of both of Myrensi’s hands put together-- scurries across her shoulders and down her arm, towards Myrensi.

She takes an automatic step back. “I just don’ like the legs.”

“Aww, Minnie, she doesn’t love you,” says Quirin to the spider, holding Minril up to her face, and kissing the top of his head.

“You just squished his eyes,” says Myrensi.

“No I didn’t,” says Quirin, although she does examine Minril’s eyes nervously before replacing the spider on her shoulder. “You’re full of-- of  _ shit _ !”

Myrensi elbows her, laughing at the forbidden expletive. They are ten years old. The world is before them.

\---

“Try again, Myrensi,” says Self-Important Priestess, looming down over Myrensi and her desk. There’s only the three of them in the classroom: Myrensi and Quirin are the only Acolytes who are ten, the only Acolytes learning clerical magic that year. “Focus on your  _ faith _ . Feel your connection to our  _ wondrous  _ goddess,  _ Lolth _ .”

Myrensi looks down at the shattered stone sitting in front of her. Her ears are pressed flat against her head, terrified, and upset. It’s just  _ Mending _ , just a  _ cantrip _ . Just something that will  _ prove  _ that she’s as faithful as she’s spent her whole life trying to be.

“Are you sure I-- I don’ need to say anything?” asks Myrensi, staring down at the stone. Blinking back tears.

“I’m  _ quite _ certain,” snaps Self. “You have your  _ focus _ , yes?”

She nods with a gulp, pulling out a too-long pendant from where it hangs beneath her robes. It is heavy, and the stone on the end is jagged. It’s been poking her ribs all day, but it’s magic as anything. Quirin’s got one, too, and  _ hers  _ is working.  _ She _ hasn’t had any problem mending anything Self gives her. 

It--

It’s just not  _ fair _ .

“Focus on  _ Mending  _ it,” says Self. “Focus on your  _ faith _ .”

Myrensi stares down at the rock, imagining tiny beams of firey, radiant magic streaming out of her red eyes and pulling the rock together. She imagines Lolth weaving a web all around the jagged edges, smoothing them back together. She imagines  _ magic _ , crackling, changing the stone, protecting it and fixing it and making it  _ better _ .

There’s a flash of white light.

Myrensi screams as the light hits her face. Quirin yelps, surprised. And Self-- already casting-- shatters the now-blinding, glowing rock into a million tiny fragments whose light vanishes like a candle, snuffed.

“What,” Self says, her voice dangerously slow, “Myrensi, was  _ that _ ?”

\---

Myrensi doesn’t even argue when she’s sent to the Hole. She messed up, real bad, with that failed Mending spell. It’s not like she meant to make it glow like the High Priestess’s staff-- she was just trying to fix it and it did that and it was an accident, really!

But of course Myrensi doesn’t tell any of this to Self. The Priestess walks in front of her, robes snapping with her steps, and Myrensi hurries to keep up on unsteady legs. She can’t open one of her eyes; everything is a little blurry.

Myrensi is pretty sure that’s because of the light she accidentally created. But she doesn’t tell that to Self, either. She can already feel her anger seeping through the stones and up the walls and into the spiders and bats that scuttle about the drooping, rough-hewn ceiling.

They walk for what feels like forever.

But then they’re there, and there’s the Hole, simultaneously tiny and horrible and huge and swallowing.

“In,” says Self, pointing.

Myrensi nods, steps forward, but is stopped by Self’s hand. “Arcane focus.”

She very carefully pulls the finely-wrought chain over her head, hefts the stone in her hand. It catches in her white braid, but Myrensi yanks it away, and hands it to Self. The Priestess tucks it into her robes, and points at the Hole.

Myrensi nods, and steps forward, and in.

And down.

She takes the seat at the bottom of the pit, and pulls her knees up to her chest, and wraps her arms around them. Leans her head forward. 

Myrensi is a drow: she has superior dark vision. She can see in the dark even better than the horrible, drow-baby-eating humans can see in the light. But there is a taste of magic all around the Hole, and it tastes like  _ death _ , like  _ ashes _ . The magic goes into effect and suddenly Myrensi can see nothing at all. She tightens her fingers, painfully so, around her legs. Holding herself still. Holding herself down.

The daily burn marks from the High Priestess’s staff across the faces of the Acolytes are there to serve as a marker: to show their dedication to Lolth, to show how much and how fiercely they  _ want  _ this. 

Myrensi can feel in the pulsing pain across her eyes and the far side of one cheek that this burn scar is not like the others. She’s not sure just  _ what  _ happened when she tried to make the rock mend but she made it  _ light,  _ or  _ something _ , and it  **hurt** .

It still hurts.

Myrensi presses the palms of her hands against her eyes, pretending that makes them feel better. It doesn’t.

It doesn’t.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading everybody! next chapter will be up on Wednesday. also, the fic title is taken from "home" by morgxn which you can listen to [here!](https://youtu.be/8-BxYCO6EOA)
> 
> please please please leave a kudos and a comment!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myrensi's life changes. She learns some things; she loses some things.

Self never gives Myrensi her arcane focus back, but every day after she’s done with temple duties-- doing the chants to Lolth, doing her shift in the dining hall, training, lecture and speeches and talks about the wonders and graciousness of Lolth-- Self pulls Myrensi aside. Quirin spends her days learning clerical magic, now. Myrensi spends her evenings failing to mend rocks.

She can still see well enough to see the annoyance on Self’s face. Well enough to see Quirin’s face, half worried and half smug-- though somewhat hazy-- every time Myrensi fails to make the spell work.

When Quirin turns eleven, she is promoted to Head Acolyte as the previous head leaves for another temple in some other city Myrensi can’t be bothered to care about. Llocryl and Haelra are already gone.

When Myrensi turns eleven, Self pulls her aside.

“You’re to  _ meet _ with the High  _ Priestess _ ,” she says, still doing the lip thing. It’s not as funny now that Quirin isn’t there to laugh with about it.

“What about?” asks Myrensi after the long moment it takes to build up the courage to ask. 

“Unimportant.  _ Follow _ me.”

Myrensi hurries after Self through the winding corridors under the temple of Lolth, up into the courtyard and into the wider, more spacious hallways of carved stone, of the actual temple. Everything is foggy around the edges, but Myrensi’s used to that. And it’s not because the temple is foggy. It’s just her own messed up spell that messed up her eyes: they used to be red but now they’re partially clouded white. Or at least, Quirin says they are. She can’t quite tell, even in a good mirror.

Self stops in front of one of the few actual doors in the temple: tall, and intricately carved out of dark stone.

Myrensi stops too, and looks up at her, squinting to try and get her features to come into focus. (They don’t. Nothing has for the past year.) “Go in?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” she says, jutting her chin towards the door.

Myrensi takes a deep breath, and straightens her posture, trying to make herself taller. She squints, and steps forward, and pulls open the door. 

She’s only been in this room once before, when she was given to the temple of Lolth. She was also four days old and doesn’t remember it at all, so Myrensi looks around in awe, her ears twitching slightly.

She’s lived her entire life in a cavern. She’s been in the courtyard. But more so than anything else in Myrensi’s eleven years of life, this room deserve the word  _ cavernous _ .

The ceiling is so high she can’t even see it, and it’s probably not even because of her terrible eyesight! Huge black columns, carved in intricate designs she can’t quite make out, reach up and up and  _ up _ . Purple balls of light hang in the air, filling the room with a haunting and flickering glow.

Finally, Myrensi looks to the far side of the room. Way across it is a huge, black stone chair-- and not like, a really big chair.  _ Huge  _ like three stories tall.  _ Huge  _ like a goddess would sit on it.

And sitting at the foot of the foot of the throne is a drow woman.

In the temple of Lolth, Acolytes wear purple. Priestesses wear black. But this woman wears shimmering silver, and even though Myrensi can’t  _ really  _ see her, she can tell that something is different.

She walks towards her, steps hesitant. She wants to say “hello.” She doesn’t. And when she is within arm’s reach of the woman sitting at the foot of the throne, she bows.

Then there is a cool hand pressed against her cheek. “Myrensi,” says the woman, achingly gentle. “You may stand.”

Myrensi does, just  _ looking _ . The woman in the silver robes of Lolth is ancient, with long white hair and deep lines carved by the years into her face. She has the same sunburst scar as she does-- across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, across her lips. And she smiles.

“I am the High Priestess,” she says, standing, only a stone or two taller than Myrensi. “Will you walk with me?”

She nods, kind of dumbfounded, and trails half a step behind the High Priestess-- the  _ High Priestess _ !-- as she leads her through a small door at the back of the room, and into a hallway that Myrensi’s never been in.

“How are your clerical studies coming, Myrensi?”

“I-- um--” she has no idea how to respond to that, ears pressing back against her head, and says all in a rush-- “I am diligent in my studies and strive to represent well our wonderful goddess.”

The High Priestess laughs softly. “You can speak freely around me, Myrensi. I will not judge you.”

“I-- I made light, once-- but I can’t make Mending work and I  _ really _ want it to, I  _ really _ do.” The words spill out of her mouth like a river and then Myrensi blanches, stiffening. Honesty is not a quality that is rewarded in the temple of Lolth.

But the High Priestess just nods. “Some Acolytes are simply like that, Myrensi. Some cannot do magic at all. Some simply struggle with clerical magic. With the report of your miscast light spell, I would assume that you are one of the latter category.”

A long silence. “I’m  _ sorry _ ,” she says. She doesn’t know what to say. “I-- I’m faithful, I  _ am _ \--”

“I know, Myrensi.”

She snaps her mouth shut before she says something else  _ stupid _ .

The High Priestess continues. “I’ve seen how much you care. And so I am not sending you away. But I think it would be in your best interest to be removed as an Acolyte.”

Myrensi gulps. “I-- what? But the temple-- I-- this is where I live!”

“I am not sending you away from the temple, Myrensi. I am merely suggesting changing your role. Have you seen the Guardians?”

“...no?”

A smile crosses her face. “Good. It would have been a strange event indeed if you had. Myrensi, the Guardians are the protectors of the Temple. While the Acolytes work within the Temple, the Guardians work outside of it. Some take a physical route, and learn to protect the Temple from any potential threats from the Surface. Some--”

“Are those likely?” she asks, her voice a squeak.

“No, Myrensi. But the goddess has asked us to be prepared.”

“Oh.”

“Some Guardians, however, take a magical protection route. They learn wizardly or bardic magic, and design the very stones of the Temple to work with our rituals and to protect the people within. I am recommending you to be a  _ magical  _ Guardian.”

“I-- High Priestess, I-- I couldn’t  _ do  _ magic, I tried all year long--”

“Clerical magic.” She shrugs, ever so slightly. “Other magics are different. I have already told the Captain about your new position.”

She gulps. Her entire world is changing around her and Myrensi doesn’t like it, not one bit. “Who’s the Captain?”

“She’s in charge of the Guardians,” says the High Priestess, leading her around a series of sharp turns. “Her name is Nulrae.”

“I... get to know her name?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“It’s just-- I never knew Self’s name-- I mean, uh, I never knew the names of any of the Priestesses before and--”

“Myrensi. Acolytes and Guardians are very different, as you’ll soon come to learn. Follow me.”

The High Priestess turns a sharp corner and begins to ascend a flight of stairs, surprisingly quickly for her age. Myrensi trails behind her like ashes in the wind.

\---

Nulrae is lots younger than the High Priestess, when Myrensi is brought to her. She’s tall, with a thick shock of white-pink hair that’s tied up behind her head, and she is the first person Myrensi has ever seen who’s  _ not  _ wearing robes. She looks like the pictures of Lolth’s aasimar in some of their books: wearing steel-gray armor, a sword strapped to her side, wearing a thick cape of dark purple and tiny bits of reflective silver.

She is also the first person Myrensi has ever seen who  _ doesn’t  _ have the sunburst scar across her face marking her as an Acolyte or Priestess of Lolth.

“This is Myrensi Mol'diira,” says the High Priestess, to Nulrae, when nobody says anything for far too long and Myrensi begins to wonder if she can just sink right into the floor and out of sight. “I’ve recommended her as a magical Guardian.”

Nulrae nods, pushing herself up from where she leans against the wall. “What’s her level of training?”

“One year clerical magics. With no results other than what I can only classify as an amplified, light-giving abjuration spell. See her face.”

Nulrae cups Myrensi’s chin in her hands. Myrensi forces herself to stay still, still, still, the Captain’s calluses rough on her skin. She looks down at her for a long moment. Then, finally, she steps back and says, “We’ll have to do something about her eyes.”

“Glasses? Or perhaps a Lesser Restoration?”

Nulrae tilts her head again, considering. “Glasses, I think. Sometimes Restorations can have negative effects if they’re not given immediately after injury.”

“Glasses, then. I trust you can handle that?”

Nulrae looks down at the High Priestess. “Of course I can.”

Myrensi swallows a gasp-- Nulrae just said  _ that _ ?! To the  _ High Priestess _ \--?!

But the ancient woman just laughs, her ears flicking straight up in amusement. After a long moment, Myrensi smiles, too, tentative.

Nulrae nods down at her. “C’mon, then. Welcome to the Guardians, Myrensi. Or, do you have a nickname?”

“Quirin-- I mean, my friends call me Rensi,” she says, after a beat. ‘Myrensi’  _ is _ a bit of a mouthful, after all.

“Rensi, then.” Nulrae tilts her head slightly, shifts her posture. “Let’s get going.”

Myrensi follows after the Captain. By the time she thinks to look back at the High Priestess-- to look back at what’s left of her old life-- the woman is already gone, out of sight.

\---

The other Guardians are-- well, they’re nice. Rensi is the youngest by almost twenty years, though, so it’s kind of lonely. Even all the stuff she gets-- leather armor, and a purple-silver cape to match everybody else’s-- is too big, was someone else’s first. One of the older Guardians-- a fighter with muscles bigger than Rensi’s head named Quarace-- teaches her how to cinch the straps tighter, teaches her workouts and exercises to develop muscle mass, teaches her how to navigate the part of the temple allotted to the Guardians.

(Only her new glasses aren’t secondhand-- they’re big, though, with wide panes of glass and wire frames and they fit like they’ve always been there on her face. For the first time in over a year, Rensi can  _ see _ . She cries when she puts them on, and Nulrae doesn’t yell at her for it.)

The Acolytes spent their lives, mostly, in the catacomb-like tunnels beneath the temple itself. That’s where their quarters were, that’s where the mushroom gardens they tended to were, that’s where they spent every minute of every day that wasn’t in the temple itself.

The Guardians work within the walls, and outside of them.

The Guardians who fight-- Captain Nulrae, for one, and Quarace-- whose face bears an old, old scar in the shape of a sunburst, marking her (like Rensi!) as a once-acolyte-- they work outside the walls. They have big heavy swords that Rensi can barely lift, and they are the physical Guardians of the temple. They get to see the huge cave that Lolth’s temple only fills a  _ crevice  _ of. They get to see the rest of the city of Relonar, even if they’re not allowed to go into it.

It’s more freedom than Rensi’s ever heard of, ever had.

But she is not a Guardian who fights, even though Quarace is helping her learn to handle a shortsword safely, even if she has a dagger sheathed on the side of her belt.

No, Rensi is a  _ magical _ Guardian.

And that means she spends her days within the huge thick walls of the temple, which she now knows are  _ hollow _ \-- which she now knows house a host of magical Guardians whose job it is to constantly maintain the intricate runes carved into the walls. 

Burynda is the next-youngest magical Guardian after Rensi: she’s somewhere in her thirties, and Rensi can tell that she doesn’t  _ like  _ having to take care of her and teach her runes, but there’s nobody she can complain to. Even though the Guardians never get sent to the Hole (!), Captain Nulrae is still completely in charge, and she reports directly to the High Priestess, who reports directly to  _ Lolth _ .

So Burynda teaches Rensi what each of the thousands of thousands of carvings means, teaches her how to tell them apart. The ones that are boxed in are the names of people within the temple-- the Guardians and Priestesses and Acolytes. The empty boxes allow strangers-- people from the city of Relonar-- into the Temple, but once there’s one person per box, a magical barrier arises, keeping all others out.

(This, Burynda tells her, is so that if a  _ surface invasion _ reaches them, it’ll only allow in the number of invaders that the Guardians could fight off. Rensi isn’t sure if this is a joke, and Burynda just laughs when she asks her to explain what she means.)

There are other runes, too. Runes to keep the bioluminescent lights glowing faintly, runes to keep the hallways clean, runes to keep the walls sturdy under the weight of the world.

Rensi learns all the runes as she cleans them, one by one, with the cleaning and polishing kit that hangs on her belt, next to her dagger. For the first couple of months that she’s with the Guardians, Burynda hovers nearby, doing her own work of carving new runes into the walls, of deepening and adjusting existing runes. Watching while Rensi cleans existing runes to make sure she doesn’t accidentally put a gash in one that will send the whole ceiling collapsing down onto them.

(That’s also something Burynda likes to tell Rensi about. A lot. She’s  _ pretty  _ sure that she’s joking.)

The work is easy: the work is boring. But by the time six months are passed, Rensi knows runes just as well as she knows Undercommon, and she knows not only where  _ her  _ rune is-- the bottom left corner just outside the Courtyard-- she knows where the others’ runes are, too. Quirin’s is high up in the middle of the wall of one of the temple hallways, so high that Rensi struggles to reach it when she goes to clean it. Llocryl’s rune-- which she’s only  _ pretty  _ sure belongs to Llocryl-- has been scratched almost completely off the wall. Of course, Rensi figures. Llocryl has, while she’s been with the Guardians, been assigned to a new temple.

(Rensi didn’t even get to say good-bye. Not to Llocryl, not to anyone.)

She finds the remnants of Haelra’s rune (she’s gone too, now), finds Achavara’s rune. And after a painstaking nine months of cleaning, cleaning, cleaning runes, Burynda stops Rensi before she can leave her small but individual quarters.

“You’re meeting with Nulrae today,” she says, brusque in the same way she always is. 

“Why?” asks Rensi, cinching the straps of her still too-big armor as tight as she can get them.

Burynda shrugs. “You know where her office is, right?”

“Yeah.” It’s in the middle of one of the thick pillars that holds up the High Priestess’s hall, magically enlarged. Rensi’s cleaned its runes enough times to know where it is and how the magic behind it works.

“Good.” And Burynda sweeps out of the room, her cape a whirlwind behind her.

Rensi takes a deep breath. She hasn’t messed up any of the runes, has she? She’s been nothing but careful-- she’s done her job as well as she possibly can,  _ better  _ than she could possibly be expected to. She knows this. 

And people who do their job don’t get sent to the Hole.  _ Guardians  _ don’t get sent to the Hole.

Rensi pulls on her own cape, double and triple-checks the clasp. She glances in the mirror-- her own hair is a long, long white braid, her glasses sit perfectly straight on her still-scarred face. 

Well. It’s not going to get any better just by worrying ‘bout it, she figures, even as her ears flick back, betraying her still very-present worries.

Rensi squares her shoulders, and steps out of her room.

\---

Thank the gods below-- a thousand prayers to Lolth!-- Rensi isn’t in trouble. No, she’s getting to learn magic.  _ Real  _ magic! Not just cantrips-- she gets to learn  _ runes _ , runic magic. Nulrae will teach her  _ herself _ , and Rensi will be able to do what Burynda does, to actually re-carve the existing runes. To make them  _ better  _ than they were before.

And then when Rensi gets really good at  _ that _ , she’s going to get to carve her very  _ own  _ runes!

She’s excited, almost giddy. Her ears are perked straight up in the air and stay that way for the next week and a half. Quarace teases her about it, gently, when she can’t stop smiling during their next sword lesson, but Rensi doesn’t care. Finally,  _ finally _ , she gets to  _ prove  _ that she is good, that she is worthy of being at the temple still.  _ Even _ if she couldn’t do clerical magic.

Rensi throws herself into learning to carve runes, going through thousands of pieces of scrap slate that she’s given to practice carving on. The first fifty or so shatter as she tries to carve them with the  _ brand new  _ ** _magical wand_ ** that Nulrae gave her. But she’s still doing  _ magic _ ! And she keeps practicing, and she doesn’t stop.

Slowly, slowly, the shattered stones begin to stay together. She makes gashes and then gouges and then-- after hundreds of stones, months of practice-- Rensi figures out how to make  _ tiny  _ slices. It reminds her of cooking, back when she was an Acolyte and traded cleaning shifts with Quirin so she could be in the kitchen as much as possible.

It’s  _ creation _ , this rune-making, and it is  _ beautiful _ . 

There’s no limits on her creativity like there were in those kitchen shifts-- Rensi can do  _ anything she wants  _ with the runes if she tries hard enough.

It’s also two years of  _ practice practice practice  _ and  _ training with Quarace  _ and  _ constantly cleaning the runes  _ but finally, Rensi is allowed to carve onto the walls of the temple itself. Her first assignment is to re-carve some of the empty boxes that allow people into the temple. The wand that Nulrae gave her-- a slim, metallic rod, that matches the silvery accents of her cape-- is steady in her hand. Her fingers do not shake. She couldn’t do clerical magic to save her life but wizardly magic, once it’s explained, comes almost naturally to Rensi.

She lifts her wand, breathes in. Exhales--  _ breath and magic and _ \-- the stone splits at her wand tip. A perfect line, a perfect box.

Rensi smiles, and pushes her glasses further up her nose, moves on to the next rune she’s been assigned to re-carve and clean. She knows what she’s doing; she loves what she’s doing.

\---

Another year passes. Rensi is fourteen, now, and even though she’s under  _ half  _ of Burynda’s age she’s just been allowed to carve her own rune. Her  _ own rune _ ! It was tiny, sure, just a little cleaning spell worked into it, squished between two much larger and much more important runes. But it was  _ hers _ .

And yeah, Burynda’s been calling her a stuck-up brat to anybody who will listen-- which is pretty dang awkward because Rensi’s quarters are right next to Burynda’s-- but Rensi doesn’t care. Burynda’s just jealous that Rensi’s done what she hasn’t been able to do: she did everything Burynda  _ ever  _ did in  _ half  _ the time. Maybe even less.

She is  _ good _ at carving runes-- good at designing them, too. After another two years it’s hard to find a new rune being carved by any of the Guardians that Rensi didn’t design, or at the very least didn’t help with. Only Nulrae-- both a physical  _ and  _ a magical Guardian-- outpaces her, but Rensi can’t begrudge her that. She’s the Captain, after all! She’s  _ supposed  _ to be the best of the best!

But Rensi is sixteen, and then sixteen and a half, and then seventeen. And as the years pass-- as Rensi never leaves the narrow, cramped spaces within the walls of the Temple-- she begins to realize something.

There is nowhere further for her to go.

She’s no longer an Acolyte, there’s no longer a distant temple to dream of one day running, of one day becoming the High Priestess of. The only place further up than where Rensi is right now is Captain of the Guardians-- but only if she stays at this temple long enough for Nulrae-- and all the older Guardians who rank higher than Rensi, still-- to die. All of the Guardians are drow: that process would take  _ centuries _ .

There is nowhere else to go and nothing else to do: her life has become runes and magic, sword training with Quarace and Nulrae giving her books on  _ actual  _ wizardly magics (not just runes!) that Rensi practically eats up.

She feels stuck like she never has before, and at night, while she meditates, Rensi begins to dream.

She can’t remember ever dreaming before-- it’s not something that’s really  _ usual  _ in meditation-- but now every night there is a tall drow woman in her dreams with hair of  _ gold _ , so bright it hurts her eyes to look at it. She runs towards this woman but can never reach her-- the woman’s arms are outstretched, she is reaching out to  _ Rensi _ \--

Above the woman the ceiling is not black. Instead it is speckled with a million tiny, brilliant dots of light that sparkle like the silver accents do on Rensi’s Guardian cape. She has no idea what those lights are. But she runs toward the woman-- she runs towards the lights even though all the light she has ever known has burned--

And then Rensi wakes up, alone, in the dark.

\---

One morning when she wakes up from a dream of the golden-haired woman, there is a large spider on her leg. It’s about the size of her head, which isn’t necessarily unusual in the Underdark: it’s just that Rensi  _ really  _ doesn’t like spiders. They’re sacred to Lolth, though, so when she wakes up and feels  _ legs legs legs  _ she just twitches, slightly, so it’s off of her.

There aren’t usually spiders in the walls of the temple, though. Their cobwebs get in the way of the runes and that just can’t happen.

Any spiders who find their way there are carefully relocated. 

“Go away,” she whispers to the spider. She doesn’t have a door and the other Guardians-- well, the ones who aren’t the physical Guardians who have night shift-- are meditating just down the hall. 

The spider does not go away. Instead, it runs along the bedspread, right up next to Rensi’s face.

She sits up, scrambling along her mat and away from it. Everything is blurry again: she’s not wearing her glasses. “Go away!”

The spider follows her, and  _ jumps  _ onto her arm-- Rensi bites her lip, pointed teeth drawing blood, but at least she doesn’t scream and get everybody mad at her for waking them up-- and then it scrambles up her arm and up onto her shoulder, where it stops it’s wild, careening run.

Just like Minril used to sit on Quirin’s shoulder, she thinks, wildly.

And then-- like Rensi summoned up her voice by just  _ thinking  _ about her-- she hears Quirin. She hears  _ her best friend _ for the first time in six years.

“Rensi,” says Quirin’s voice, almost directly in her ear. “This should work-- say something back to Minnie if you can hear me.”

Gods  _ below _ .

“Quirin?” she whispers back to the spider, to-- to  _ Minril _ .

“Oh hell yeah,” says Quirin. Is she speaking  _ though  _ Minril? Could you modify Message to work like that? Could you-- “--are you listening?”

“Oh. Sorry,” she says, glancing to the door, then pulls her blanket over herself and the spider, lying back down so it’s not obvious that she’s up too early, doing something that Rensi knows in her bones she isn’t supposed to be doing. “What... are you doing?”

“You’re a Guardian, right, Rensi? You do the runes and shit?”

“Yeah? Yeah, I-- Quirin, are you still  _ here _ ? I thought you’d be off at a new temple and--”

“I’m still here,” she says, her words grim for the first time. “I’m  _ way  _ too good of a cleric for them to get rid of me. I’m a Priestess now.”

“I-- congratulations!” she’s kinda shocked-- that’s the youngest Priestess Rensi’s ever heard of but if anybody’s good enough to break that age barrier it’s Quirin, no doubt about it. “Is that...”

“Why I found you? No.” A beat. “Rensi, I need your help.”

“With what?”

“Do you remember Achavra?”

“How could I forget?” she asks. The toddler of the group-- three years old when Rensi was eleven-- after the six years that Rensi has spent with the Guardians working within the walls of the temple, Achavra would be be nine or so. 

“We need to get her out of here. Rensi, she-- you remember how wild she was,” Quirin says, like a plea. “She won’t stay  _ still _ , she’s  _ in _ the Hole more than she is out of it. We need to get her out of the Temple.”

Rensi can’t help it-- she laughs, then claps a hand over her mouth. She  _ can’t  _ rouse the other Guardians from their meditation. “ _ What _ ? You can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Lolth-- Quirin, you’re a  _ Priestess  _ now! Achavra belongs to Lolth, we all do--”

“Gods below, Rensi, don’t tell me you  _ believe _ that shit.”

“You’re-- you’re a  _ Priestess _ ! You’re  _ supposed _ to believe it, all of it!”

Quirin sighs. Minril, the spider, shifts on Rensi’s shoulder, and she shudders at the sensation of  _ just way too many legs _ . “Yeah, I am, and I love Lolth and all that but  _ listen _ , Rensi, she can’t stay here. It’s going to kill her sooner or later.”

Rensi takes a deep breath, and shuts her eyes. It has been six years and she now knows magic, she knows runes, she knows how to create and destroy. If she wanted to-- if Quirin asked-- Rensi could bring the whole temple down around them. 

She won’t do that. This is her  _ home _ .

But Achavra-- just nine years old and-- and the  _ Hole _ \--

And the well-remembered pain of light across her face in a scar that even now six years later hasn’t gone away--

Quirin is her best friend. Rensi trusts her. 

“What do you want me to do?”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Next chapter will be up on Monday. 
> 
> If you liked this chapter, please please PLEASE leave me a comment and kudos! Or hop over to tumblr and say hi to me at [@onArete](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/onarete)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rensi takes a stand.

“I really don’t like this,” Rensi whispers to Minril on her shoulder, two weeks later when their plan is set into motion. “You’re  _ sure  _ you’ll be able to get her out the doors?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” says Quirin. Here, she thinks, is the great difference between them: now that they are breaking the rules, Rensi is terrified, and Quirin is exhilarated. “I’m a Priestess now, nobody’s gonna question  _ me _ . Are  _ you  _ gonna be able to do your part?”

Rensi nods, and then remembers that Quirin won’t be able to hear her nod. “Yeah. I jus’ don’t like it, that’s all.”

“It’s gonna be _perfectly_ _fine_, Rensi,” she responds, and Rensi can practically _hear _her rolling her eyes. “Besides, you said there’s no way the Guardians’ll be able to know who messed with the rune. You said they might not even notice.”

“Maybe,” she says, rounding the corner of the hallway and clinging to the hope that she’s good enough at runes to do this. “Haelra will be there to get her?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” says Quirin. “We’ve gone over the plan a hundred times.”

“I jus’ worry, that’s all.”

“Gods below, I’m aware.”

Rensi probably shouldn’t feel as hurt by that comment as she does, right? No. She shouldn’t. She’s being silly.

She scans the wall of runes she knows so well, running her fingers along their carved edges, before shooting a nervous glance over her shoulder. Her ears flick back, pressed flat against her head. Sure, there’s no reason for anybody else to be in the hallway right now: it’s Rensi’s scheduled time, which is nervewracking because then if somebody notices Achavra’s rune before the next shift then she’ll get blamed for sure. But also it’s the only time when someone else won’t be in this hall, the only time when Rensi has a good, actual reason to be there.

She finds Acavra’s rune, small, and positioned near to the floor in the middle of a row of similar, square-enclosed runes marking other people who reside and work at the temple. Rensi kneels, the knees of her well-worn leather armor (that  _ finally _ fits) bending silently, cushioning the stone floor. She slings her runes kit around her belt to the front, opens it, moves her cleaning cloths and polishing sticks aside, plucking out her wand. Minril shifts on her shoulder, almost like he is as nervous as she is.

Rensi isn’t sure she breathes, the whole time that she kneels there, doing something she has never done before:  _ breaking _ one of the runes instead of making it better. 

It’s just a jagged line: a simple slip of the wand, a jolt of the hand. An  _ accident _ . Only Rensi knows better. Because it’s no accident: it breaks the runes that seal Achavra inside the temple, without destroying the box around them that allow her to be inside. Once Quirin tells her that she’s safely smuggled Achavra out of the temple and to Haelra-- who is at some other temple that has more leniency, that allows its Priestesses to travel-- only then will Rensi destroy the rune. She is ridiculously good at what she does. She can make it look as though Achavra’s rune never existed at all.

And, following along with Quirin’s excited murmurs through Minril, that is exactly what Rensi does.

She’s not even late for dinner, and Achavra is safe.

\---

That night in her meditation dreams the golden-haired woman speaks to her. “Rensi,” she says, and Rensi is not startled. “Rensi, darling. What do you want?”

Rensi has never stopped running towards this woman and her ceiling of lights. What does she  _ want _ ? It doesn’t matter.

It’s just a dream, after all.

\---

She thinks she’s gotten away with it, too, for a day, and then two, and then three. Rensi breathes easy for the first time once a week passes, but gods below, of  _ course  _ it’s on day eight that Nulrae walks up to her as she winds her way towards her assigned section of wall for the day.

She’s instantly scared, her ears flicking back against her head. “Um, hello, Captain Nulrae?”

“Hello, Rensi. Where are you working today?”

“I, um, the-- the outer courtyard wall--”

Nulrae cuts her off. “I know.”

“You... do?”

“Yes. I assigned you there specifically for today.”

Rensi gulps. But it wasn’t the outer courtyard wall that she removed Achavara’s rune from-- there is nothing for her to hide there. “Why’s... that?”

“You’re aware that there is a rune corresponding to each person carved somewhere into the walls of the Temple,” says the Captain, and it’s not a question even though it’s phrased like one. “You’re one of our best rune-makers, Rensi, and so I would assume you’ve found your own rune by now. Perhaps even the runes of  _ others _ you care about.”

Lie-- run--  _ fight _ \-- gods below, the options are  _ laughable _ . Rensi’s made her bed and climbed into it and now she has to  _ stay  _ there.

“Yeah,” she says, finally.

Nulrae nods, a sharp little jab, and points down. There, at the bottom left corner of the wall outside the courtyard, is Rensi’s own rune, the one that allows her to be inside the temple. It is neat, perfectly clean, and encased in a box.

“I am giving you one chance,” she says. “One choice. And Rensi, please know that this is not a choice given to you because I am a  _ nice _ person, or because I  _ like _ you, or because I want you to grow old. I am giving you this choice simply because somebody gave  _ me  _ this choice.”

Rensi can only nod. Did the runes recirculating the air all suddenly fail? That wouldn’t make any sense, it’s just that it feels like she can’t  _ breathe-- _

“You can choose to stay with the Guardians,” says Nulrae. “I will choose another to take the blame for destroying the Acolyte Achavra’s rune and allowing her to escape. Perhaps Burynda? You’ve never liked her.”

“I-- I--” they would turn Burynda out, they would hurt her, they might even  _ kill _ her. Rensi doesn’t know the punishment for Guardians who make mistakes but she knows in her gut it’s so much worse than the Hole. She also knows it could be her.

“You could remain here and begin to work as my assistant, Rensi,” continues Nulrae. “In the spirit of honesty, it was  _ this _ option that I chose. You could do more than just carve runes for the rest of your life.

“Or, you could take the blame yourself. For obvious reasons, I would not suggest this course of action.”

A beat. “Are there... any other options?” Rensi asks, very proud of how little her voice shakes.

“You can leave,” she says, simply. “You would need to leave Relonar altogether, and quite possibly the Underdark. But you could be anything you wanted to be.”

“I--”

“You have five minutes to decide before the alarm runes activate, signaling a complete loss of a rune, and you’re blamed for it.”

“I-- I didn’t know there were alarm runes--”

Nulrae smiles. “You weren’t supposed to know. But you need to focus, Rensi. You need to make a choice. Work with me, and become Captain when I die?  _ Die _ yourself? Or leave?”

Rensi closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to die, she knows that much, at least.

She should want to stay and be Nulrae’s assistant, learn more magic and about those alarm runes and all the things she doesn’t know. Being Captain she’d get to see Quirin as a Priestess, she’d get to  _ know  _ and  _ do _ and--

There is something tantalizing in the freedom Nulrae spoke of it, even though it sounds like that’s not the choice she wants Rensi to make. Something about that option-- well, it scares Rensi half to death-- but something about it feels like a balm for a wound she can’t remember receiving.

Something about it reminds her of her dreams, of the drow woman with golden hair and lights on the ceiling and her arms wide open, beckoning Rensi to run to her.

_ What does she want _ ?

Rensi wants to  _ live _ . She wants to  _ make  _ and  _ create _ , wants her life to leave behind something more than a scar on her face and runes on the wall and Achavara’s freedom. She wants to do more-- she can do more.

She opens her eyes. Minril, who has been her constant companion (even though she  _ really really really  _ hates his legs), shifts nervously on her shoulder. She knows what she’s choosing.

“What’s your decision?” says Nulrae, looking Rensi square in the eyes. “Are you going to stay--”

“I’m leaving,” she says, and it bursts out of her like water from a dam and suddenly Rensi is smiling like she can’t remember having done, well, ever! “I’m going.”

Nulrae straightens, and for once she looks... surprised. Calculating. “That is not the choice I expected you to make.”

She takes a deep breath, tugs open her rune-making kit, and pulls out her wand. “Me neither, Captain.”

The woman doesn’t stop Rensi as she steps to the wall and turns her back-- risky, she knows, but her  _ rune _ \-- she doesn’t stop her as Rensi levels her wand at her own rune and utterly destroys it without raising a finger.

“You should go, then,” says Nulrae, when the wall is blank and bare except for the square rune that allows her to remain in the temple. Rensi’s fingers grip tight around her wand. “You know how to leave the walls?”

“Yes,” she says. She knows how to get out of the innermost walls, out of the temple altogether, even if she hasn’t exactly  _ been  _ out since she came in so many years ago.

“You will be pursued and hated by all those who follow Lolth. If you aim to survive this, Rensi, you will leave Relonar as quickly as possible, get to the upper cities, and make yourself a new life. Be smart. If you must, flee the Underdark together.” She pauses. “Go out the front doors. Quarace is on duty-- you’ll need to overpower her.”

“But--!”

“You need to  _ sell _ this, Rensi. You have about one minute before the alarm runes begin. Here.”

Nulrae sets her hands on Rensi’s shoulders, meets her eyes dead-on. “Go with the blessing of Eilistraee, Myrensi Mol'diira. Go with the blessing of she who calls her children to the surface, to the stars. Go with the blessing of all those who have gone before you. May your steps be steady and your burdens light.”

This is not a blessing of Lolth.

There is a thrum of light, and for the first time in Rensi’s life, the light does not burn. Instead, it settles golden like a shawl around her shoulders, like armor. It is healing where Lolth was pain, it is soft where Lolth’s followers were steel.

When she looks back up at Nulrae, her eyes are hard again. “Go.”

She turns, wand gripped tight in her hand. Pushes her glasses further up her nose. And as Nulrae watches-- as Nulrae  _ lets her go _ \-- Rensi runs. She runs around the corner and down the sloped path and past a disgruntled Burynda, who shouts something after her but Rensi ignores it, turning a corner and wishing she’d thought to bring her shortsword from Quarace’s lessons with her but knowing she doesn’t have time to go and grab it. She can practically feel the clock that she runs against before the alarm runes activate.

Ticking down her freedom.

She bursts out of the innermost walls and directly into a duo of young Acolytes, purple-robed and no older than six or seven. They gape at her as she pushes herself to her feet-- they’ve never seen her before, they were born when she was still in the walls-- and they’ve certainly never seen a guardian before. Nor a woman dressed in silver-patterned and dyed leather armor, not with the burn mark on her face that they bear, not with her cape and her panic whipping behind her.

“I’m so sorry,” says Rensi, and she runs past the Acolytes. Their runes are still intact: she cannot take them with her. She cannot save them. 

All she can do is try to save herself.

\---

Nobody stops her as she races through the corridors, her footsteps echoing panicked, wand in one hand and dagger in the other. Rensi bursts out of the heavy main doors and stops, the doors flapping open behind her, just  _ looking _ . 

She has never seen this much space before in her entire  _ life _ . It’s a cavern, so big she can’t see the far edges or the ceiling, and sprawling below her is the city of Relonar that she’s lived in her entire life and never been in. Even from so far away, Rensi can hear the quiet din of its citizens going about their lives.

“Rensi?” says somebody, jolting her back to herself.

Quarace is there, her hand on her sheathed sword, looking at her. “What are you doing here?”

_ Sell it _ , Nulrae had said.  _ Overpower her _ , she had told her.

Quarace is over a hundred, has had so long to live and grow and learn. Rensi is seventeen and terrified.

“I’m leaving,” she says, voice shaking very slightly, readjusting her grip on her wand, her ears flicking back.

“Rensi,” says Quarace, almost scared. “If this is a dare, or, or, or a joke, just turn around, go back inside,  _ please-- _ Rensi, the runes, your rune will  _ burn you up _ before you can leave--”

Behind her, from the open doors to the temple, an earsplitting alarm begins. Quarace’s expression hardens, and she draws her sword.

Rensi gulps, and raises her wand. “I said, I’m  _ leaving _ .”

Quarace swings first, but Rensi dodges, ducking closer to Quarace-- to her  _ friend _ . She doesn’t waste time using magic missile or anything-- just fires up her wand like she’s going to carve through stone.

Quarace  _ screams  _ as Rensi hits her arm, and attacks again, left arm falling limp at her side. She’s just a second too late to dodge, taking the attack down the side of her leg with a grunt, firing back immediately. 

She’s not sure exactly what spell she’s using, only she’s thinking about thunderwave to push Quarace away, and she’s thinking about the blasting spell she just used to obliterate her rune from the wall, and somewhere along the way out of her wand the spells must’ve gotten tangled up or something because what comes out isn’t the blasting spell or thunderwave-- but rather a ball of fine golden light that doesn’t hurt Rensi’s eyes as it slams into Quarace’s chest and flings her backwards. She hits the open door with a sickening thud and Rensi winces and turns away from her closest friend and runs.

Down the slope towards the city of Relonar, towards the wall of the cavern, glasses slipping down her nose so much she eventually takes them off and stuffs them into her rune-making kit. She can’t stop running, can’t look back to see if she’s being followed in case she trips on the tiny little path she’s on, full of switchbacks and sudden dips, carved (pretty dang badly) into the side of this enormous cavern that is suddenly more terrifying than any Hole.

Rensi runs until she can’t any more and then she rips off the bottom of her cape and does her best to bandage up the huge gash down her leg. It hurts but Rensi’s hurt worse. She stands up and puts her glasses back on, looks back towards the Temple. She can’t see it any more, can’t see anybody following her. But there’s the taste of panic on her lips and the feeling of fear heavy in her gut. Her ears are trembling with fear, and that’s a tell if there’s every been one. She walks until she can breathe again, and then runs, and then hikes up the steep side of the cavern to a shallow little cave and curls up under her cape. 

She is free. She is alone-- except for Minril, who clings nervously onto her shoulder. And she is  _ terrified _ .

\---

Rensi wakes early the next morning from the same dream she’s been having for months and yeas-- the golden haired woman, reaching out for her, the lights in the sky. Asking, “What do you want?” And tonight, asking, “How far will you go?”

She shoves her glasses onto her face, frantic, and peeks out the edge of the tiny little crevice she slept in. But there’s no marauding Priestesses there, no soldiers or Guardians or-- or anything. It hits Rensi like a huge stone that she doesn’t even  _ know  _ what’s waiting for her in Relonar, what there might be in the upper cities. Yeah, she’s heard of the travellers, and the humans who eat babies, but she doesn’t  _ know  _ what’s out there.

(It scares her.)

So she does what little she can to prepare for the day of travel. She’d seen some maps of the city of Relonar during her wizardly studies, but she hadn’t been too concerned about memorizing them. In retrospect, Rensi would’ve done  _ so many  _ things differently.

But she’s pretty sure that the opening from Relonar into the Tunnel that leads to the upper cities is on the far side of Relonar. A straight shot across the city, except Nulrae said that she’ll be hunted. And Rensi’s young but she sure ain’t stupid. She’s going to follow the cavern around the edges, and hope nothing lurks in its shadowy corners.

She re-bandages her leg as best she can. Quarace got a good hit in, but it’s stopped bleeding, which is probably a good thing? Rensi’s not sure. She kind of wishes she’d thought to take Quarace’s longsword before she left her, slumped and bleeding. But also Rensi only knows the shortsword anyway, so.

She makes sure her rune-making pouch is secure on her belt, and her dagger on the other side. She slept with her wand in hand, and she doesn’t intend to change that. She pulls her cloak tight around her shoulders, makes sure that Minril is secure in his perch, and pushes her glasses up her nose. And Rensi steps out of her crevice, and into a new day of freedom.

She walks well into the afternoon-- only having to kill one drow-sized spider who decided she was in it’s way, and only after trying to talk it down anyway-- before Rensi remembers that she needs to eat. She considers going back to the spider for the spider meat, but Minril’s on her shoulder still, and that feels mean. Even if Rensi is pretty dang hungry.

It’s close to dinnertime, she thinks, when she crosses a small stream. It’s really no more than a trickle of water winding its way down the side of the cavern, but it’s clean and it’s cold and it feels like a blessing of Lolth.

Well, no. No, it doesn’t.

Rensi cups her hands beneath the water and drinks, deeply. 

It doesn’t feel like a blessing of Lolth because all she’d ever gotten from Lolth was pain and this isn’t that at all.

She murmurs a generic prayer-- to the gods below-- and then the same one but to the gods above. The water is coming down from somewhere, after all, and sure everybody says humans eat babies and the surface is evil but just maybe one of their gods took pity on Rensi and sent her water.

She drinks until her stomach isn’t growling with hunger, and continues on. 

Darkvision means that there’s no night, really, not for Rensi or for anybody in the Underdark. But it’s late, much later than she would usually be up, when she hits a mushroom patch.

Of  _ course _ !

She doesn’t have poison resistance like the stories she’s heard about dwarves, but Rensi spent years having the time of her life in the Acolyte kitchen. She can tell a good mushroom from a bad one  _ any  _ day.

So Rensi eats her fill of mushrooms, and fashions her cloak into a sort of sling that she loads with as many mushrooms as she can reasonably carry, and continues on. Her leg isn’t bleeding when she stops to check it, and it’s not like she actually needs to meditate every night anyway. There are no good hidden crevices anywhere in sight, so Rensi stands up, and keeps walking.

\---

Early the next morning she sees somebody, the first person she’s seen since the edge of the cavern curved away from the tallest buildings and densest parts of Relonar. They’re far ahead in the distance, just somebody walking along. 

Rensi tells herself that they have no reason to know who she is.

Well, besides the mangled starburst scar across her face.

Why didn’t she think to hide it?! Gods below and above, why didn’t she think to learn minor illusion when she had the chance?!

She could turn left, away from the edge of the cavern, and into the city of Relonar. But then there’d just be  _ more  _ people and--

Rensi just needs to get out of this city and through the Tunnel and to the upper cities and out of the Underdark and then she will be safe.

And right now that means she just has to walk past this person in the distance and they’ll be just some, some old lady or whatever. And it will be  _ fine _ .

Rensi pushes her glasses up on her nose, and shifts her wand in her hand, steps steady and sure as she walks towards this person. The closer she gets, the more distinct they become. They’re older than she is, maybe in their early one-hundreds, with long silver hair down their back. And they’re wearing robes in a strange silver-purple color that Rensi’s never seen: but she’s seen those robes before. The robe color doesn’t tell her what purpose this woman served at a temple of Lolth, but she’s from one. She has the same sunburst scar as Rensi and every other Acolyte.

This isn’t just some random old lady out for a stroll.

Her ears flick back.

But there’s no use in running away now.

When they’re within speaking distance, the woman stops. Rensi does, too, her hand tight on her wand.

“ **Ex-Guardian Rensi** ,” says the woman, her voice unnaturally loud by use of Thaumaturgy, or maybe it’s just how scared Rensi is, “ **I am Warrior Usyne, representative of Lolth. You are hereby charged with Treason and Heresy of the highest degree. Your sentence is immediate death** .”

There weren’t Warriors at Rensi’s temple, but she’s heard of them: this Warrior, Usyne, must be from another temple in Relonar-- Rensi’s crimes must have been spread all across the city.

She barely thinks this before Usyne is rushing at her with a huge spear, tip sparking with malevolent energy-- Rensi barely makes it out of the way before the spear is buried in the ground where she stood a split second ago.

There’s no talk, no banter. Usyne yanks her spear out and slashes at Rensi, who runs towards her--

(remembering a thousand lessons from Quarace: “If your opponent’s bigger than you usin’ a longer weapon, you wanna get close--”)

Rensi’s gouging spell goes wide, ricocheting off some armored piece of Usyne’s robe and striking the wall behind them. For a split second, she glances up, around. They’re at the edge of the cavern, and the ceiling hangs low, just a bit over Usyne’s head. And Ren’s back is to the wall, to a--

She darts backwards, barely out of the way of Usyne’s next slash, tripping over her own feet and sprawling backwards, scrambling on her hands and feet. She does, however, get a look behind her.

There’s a crevice, with the ceiling the same height but full of stalactites.

The spear catches Rensi’s arm, and she screams. A jolt of black energy, horrible and crawling like a million spider legs, tears up her arm until she manages to yank it away, barely pushing herself to her feet and turning tail and  _ running  _ for the crevice.

She can’t move her arm but at least it’s not her wand arm. Usyne’s a million  _ billion _ times better at this than Rensi is, and she’s only got one hint of a plan, one possible way to survive this defection.

She’s just inches in front of the spear tip but she leads the way into the crevice-- Usyne’s breathing and footsteps right behind her-- and then Rensi  _ drops _ to the ground, splayed out on her back, her wand held limp in her hand but it just  _ happens  _ to be pointing up at the ceiling. 

Usyne nearly trips over the mushrooms that spill out of Rensi’s cloak, catches her balance just in time, and stares down at her. 

Rensi stares right back up at her. She’s crying, she knows this, and she’s desperately hoping that she is as pitiful of a sight as she looks. 

She needs time if this is going to work, and so she needs Usyne to not kill her immediately.

“ _ Please _ ,” says Rensi. “ _ Please _ \--”

Her voice is still magically loud and horribly painful. “ **There is no mercy in justice, Ex-Guardian Rensi** .”

The Warrior stands below Rensi’s feet. Rensi’s wand points at the ceiling. Usyne raises her spear, ceremonial, high into the air.

“ _ Please _ ,” says Rensi, and she’s no longer talking to Usyne.

Usyne drives her spear down. But faster than her arm is the falling stalactite that Rensi had been painstakingly carving away from the ceiling. Usyne is there and then she is not, and her spear clatters to the ground inches away from Rensi.

She lets out a breath, and then starts to laugh, hysterical, lying in the dirt for a long long time.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! please drop me a comment and kudos if you're enjoying this!! or if it's easier, come find me on tumblr at [@onArete](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/onarete)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rensi escapes, more or less.

When Rensi finally leaves the cave, she takes with her the spilled mushrooms, bundled back up in her cloak. She takes with her her wand and her dagger, her rune-making kit and Minril and her glasses. She takes Usyne’s magical spear and a growing paranoia.

Rensi starts to meditate during the days with Minril as her watchdog-- well, watch-spider-- and travel only when the city has gone to sleep. She eats mushrooms and constantly looks behind herself and rejoices when the curse fades and she can use her arm again and  _ finally _ makes it to the other side of the cavern after ten days of travelling. The last four days, the cut Quarace left on her leg becomes infected. Rensi isn’t a doctor, but she knows it’s not good. Every step hurts. But she keeps walking.

And she reaches the Tunnel early on the morning of the eleventh day. 

There’s a broad roadway that goes through it, all the way to the edges of the Tunnel, the road wide and clear all the way. Nobody is going to sneak through the Tunnel.

But that’s okay, because Rensi’s been working on learning Disguise Self as she walks. She’d started to learn it before she left the Temple, and she doesn’t  _ really  _ have the right components, but she’s got mushrooms and a spider friend and a desperation that feels as old as life itself.

So she casts Disguise Self as best she can, making herself an unassuming elderly drow woman, unscarred. She changes her cloak to be black just so it’s not easily distinguished as belonging to a Temple, but she doesn’t dare change anything else about her outfit: Rensi’s not entirely sure  _ how  _ to do that and she doesn’t want to test it now when so much is at stake.

There are guards, she calls herself Haelra, and they wave her through. She doesn’t have to fake the weak gait and limp, but she keeps walking. The Tunnel is long and straight and uphill: Rensi keeps walking.

She’s been going-- slowly, ‘cause her leg hurts with every step and she was walking all night long anyway-- when a battlewagon with open seats trundles over to her. 

“Would you like a ride, ma’am?” asks the driver, a drow man who looks like he’s almost a hundred, if Rensi had to put a finger on it. His hair is shorn short-- which in and of itself is already very rebellious-- but the woman riding next to him has an  _ undercut _ , and her ears are  _ smaller  _ than Rensi’s-- she’s a  _ half-drow _ .

Rensi can’t quite explain to herself why these two  _ so unconventional  _ drow make her so, so happy. Maybe it’s because they’re something they’re not supposed to be, and so is she-- and here they are offering her a ride.

“ _ If  _ it would not  _ be  _ an  _ inconvenience _ ,” says Rensi, exaggerating her lips-over-teeth to get the same self-important, minced voice as Self had so long ago. (She knows without being told that it’s dangerous to be herself right now.)

“Not at all,” says the woman, her voice warm but with an accent that Rensi’s never heard before. “Sorry, the back’s kinda full, but you’re welcome to a seat if you want it.”

“I  _ thank  _ you,” she says, and she hopes they know how sincere she is. The woman hops down and offers her a hand into the wagon-- Rensi takes it, hoping her Disguise Self spell is still going strong. She has no way to check.

The back seat of the battlewagon is filled with wrapped packages, but the woman just tells her to move them aside and she does. The half-elf(!) woman climbs back into her seat, and the man starts the arcane core, trundling forward.

“I’m Jegvir,” he says, friendly. 

“And I’m Cordelia.”

_ Cordelia _ ? Rensi’s never heard that name before, but is it rude to ask where Cordelia is from, and where her human parents is, and do humans really eat drow babies? It’s probably rude.

“What’s your name, ma’am?” asks Jegvir.

“I--”

“You’re a lot older than me,” says Cordelia, friendly but blunt, turning in her seat so she’s looking back at Rensi. “But it still looks like you’re tryin’ to get away from somethin’ or other. So if you, I dunno, want to change your name...”

“Change it?” she asks, forgetting to do the self-important voice thing. Crap.

“Yeah,” says Cordelia, watching her closely. “Or even just shorten it, I know people who’ve done that.”

“People who’ve been... getting out of Relonar?” asks Rensi. She is careful not to say  _ escaping _ , though it feels like Cordelia and Jegvir know what she means.

(Should she trust them? She could always jump out of the open side of the battlewagon and run if it gets creepy. And besides, they think she’s an old lady. And they’re going  _ so  _ much faster than Rensi ever could have on her own.)

“Exactly,” Cordelia says. “So, what’s your name?”

Jegvir elbows her, friendly.

“Uh, what’s your name,  _ ma’am _ ?”

“It’s-- it’s Ren.”

“Well, welcome aboard, Ren,” says Cordelia, flashing her a white smile-- her teeth are sharp but not as much as Ren’s, that’s so  _ weird _ \-- and turns back around in her seat. “Enjoy the ride.”

\---

Jegvir and Cordelia chat back and forth, amiable, about basically nothing important all the way up the tunnel. Rensi-- wow, she’s  _ Ren  _ now, and isn’t that strange, even though she really does kinda like the name-- thinks that she should probably be using this opportunity to meditate. But every time she gets close, the battlewagon hits a bump, or Minril scurries around to her other shoulder, or she gets paranoid that her Disguise Self will wear off. Does it require concentration? Ren can’t remember.

So she doesn’t meditate, which is kinda unfortunate. But she’s getting a free ride through the Tunnel and so she  _ absolutely  _ won’t complain.

In the battlewagon, it takes them all morning to traverse up the Tunnel. Ren can’t imagine how long it would’ve taken her on foot, when she can barely walk on one of her legs.

But Jegvir and Cordelia are very nice and don’t ask Ren prying questions about where she’s from and why she’s so desperately leaving Relonar, and by the time they reach the middle of the Tunnel she’s almost completely relaxed.

Until the battlewagon stops.

Ren tenses, and Cordelia turns back to her, with a wide smile. There’s a whisper of something like-- like wind?-- across Ren’s face, which is weird.

“It’s just another checkpoint,” she says. “Nothing to worry about.”

That’s nice, but if Ren is good at anything, she’s  _ excellent  _ at worrying. And when the two guards gets out of their checkpoint and come over on foot to the battlewagon, it’s everything she can do to keep the worry off of her face.

“Jegvir,” says one of the guards, with a heavy sigh. “Thought you got banned from Relonar.”

“Of course I didn’t,” says Jegvir, sounding unimaginably offended. “I’m just a simple tradesman--”

“Yeah, yeah, we all know you and the half-blood here are smugglin’ shit.” The second guard rounded Ren’s side of the battlewagon and glanced up at her, looking nervous for a split second. “Uh, pardon my language, ma’am.”

She’s confused for just a moment: the Disguise Self must still be working, and he thinks she’s some old and frail flower of a woman. “Such  _ profanity  _ is  _ unbecoming _ ,” says Ren, doing a  _ really  _ great impression of Self if she does say so herself. “You  _ must  _ apologize!”

The guard looks deeply, deeply uncomfortable. “Uh, sorry, I guess,” he says, kind of awkwardly walking around the other side of the wagon, away from Ren. “We gotta check these packages but-- I’ll just. Not lean over your lap, ma’am.”

Ren nods, because she doesn’t know what to say. But apparently it’s good enough.

She’s not sure what Cordelia and Jegvir have smuggled in the past, but whatever it is the guards don’t find it. They just tear off all the brown paper wrapping to find boxes of-- dirt. And then they paw all the way through the dirt and set it back into the battlewagon and wave them off, up the remainder of the Tunnel.

“Hah!” says Cordelia, jubilant, once they’re out of sight of the guards, turns back to face Ren. “Great job, Ren!  _ Totally  _ fooled them!”

“I-- what?”

There’s another whisper of wind across her face. “Ok, illusion gone! Yeah, they didn’t even make you move! The stuff was all under your seat anyway, hah--!”

“What do you mean,  _ illusion gone _ ?!” Ren says, voice pitching higher with panic.

Cordelia tilts her head to the side. “You had an illusion up when you got on and then you dropped it. I put it back up and just made you, like,  _ really really  _ old so that asshole’d be nice to you.” A pause. “You did a good job with the old act, too. How old are you really?”

The battlewagon is moving but Ren jolts to her feet, stolen spear in hand. “I need to--”

“Hey, hey, shit, sorry,” says Cordelia, leaning away from Ren, her hands up, nonthreatening. “Don’t jump outta the wagon.”

The wagon bumps over a rut, tossing Ren back into her seat. She winces as her injured leg bounces, hard.

“Listen, the illusion thing, that’s totally cool with us,” Cordelia says, eyes wide and sincere. “I thought you were cool with it ‘cause you dropped it.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Ren manages, biting her lip because  _ gods above and below  _ her leg is  _ killing  _ her. “I-- I-- oh, gods--”

“It’s okay, Ren,” says Jegvir, looking at the road as he navigates around a pothole. “Neither of us are going to turn you in. You’re sitting on plenty of illegal substances yourself. This isn’t exactly a lawful battlewagon.”

“I, I just-- I’m real sorry but the last person who saw my face tried to  _ kill  _ me!”

“If we wanted to kill you we would’ve done it already,” reasons Cordelia. Her logic does not actually make Ren feel any better.

“You’re safe here,” Jegvir says. “I wouldn’t trust us either if I were you, but we can get you to A’Dareal if you want-- or any other city along the way.”

Ren swallows, hard.

She doesn’t really know how to trust people. And that’s probably for the best! But she can always jump out of the battlewagon, she can always try to re-cast Disguise Self to hide the Acolyte scar across her face.

She has come this far. She knows runes and magic, she can strategize and she can survive.

She can take this chance.

“Is-- is A’Dareal the furthest up?”

“Closest to the surface? Nah. It’s right below Barrivir,” explains Cordelia, leaning against the door, relaxed. “And  _ then  _ it’s the surface. Why? You going there?”

Ren shrugs, non-committal and nervous. “I might be. But I’m going as far away from Relonar as I can get.”

“Normally I’d ask you why,” she says. “But I get the feeling that that’d be, uh, a bit of a loaded question, y’know?”

“Um.”

“We can take you to a temple of Lolth,” offers Jegvir.

“No!” the word bursts out of Ren’s mouth, and then she sinks back in the seat, half-embarrassed and half-afraid. “I-- no, no, I can’t go to her temple--”

“Sorry,” he says, quickly, polite. “I wasn’t sure-- your scar--”

“I know.” Ren touches the scar that stretches across her face and over her eyes: she can’t help it. It is jagged and it marks her, sets her apart. Permanently brands her as Lolth’s. And because she does not belong to any temple at all right now, it marks her as an outsider, a heretic. A traitor, or an Ex-Guardian, or everything else the Warrior Usyne called her. “And-- and, yeah, I  _ was  _ there, but I-- I can’t go back. I  _ won’t _ .”

“We won’t make you,” says Cordelia. “No worries there, Rennie. There’s nondenominational temples, too.”

“Why would I go to a temple at, at all?” she asks, thinking about the Warrior Usyne and how she pursued Ren across the city. Thinking about how the mark on her face marks her anywhere she could possibly go. Thinking about how if anything she should stay as far away from temples and religion and runes as much as she can.

“For your leg, right?” asks Jegvir.

“I... what about my leg?”

“You were limping,” he says, his voice gentle. It hits Ren that he is the first man she has ever seen who wasn’t a temple worshipper, the first man she has ever spoken to. “They’d help you for free at a temple, Ren.”

“...oh.” She doesn’t know what to say. “Thank you?”

“Hey, no need for that,” says Cordelia, waving her hand. “You helped us past the checkpoint, it’s really the least we can do.”

\---

They leave her as promised at a nondenominational temple in A’Dareal. Ren doesn’t ask them what they were smuggling out of Relonar, and they don’t offer the information. In exchange, they don’t ask who or what she’s running from, they don’t mention the  _ now-apparently-VISIBLE  _ scar on her face that marks her as an Acolyte of Lolth. Well, former Acolyte.

She leans heavily on the spear she took from Usyne, and pushes her glasses further up her nose, and limps away from the battlewagon.

“Good luck!” shouts Cordelia after her, over the revving of the arcane core. By the time Ren turns to wave at them-- to thank them, to say anything-- the battlewagon is already driving away.

Well.

They got her here, and that’s what counts.

A’Dareal is in a smaller cavern than Relonar was, but that doesn’t lessen Ren’s awe. It’s so  _ strange _ , to look up and have there be  _ space _ , where bats flutter and orbs of soft purple light dance.

She looks up, and then she looks forward. The temple in front of her is shaped like a dome, and the doorway is wide and open. There are runes carved into the walls-- she limps closer-- until she can see that they’re just all structural.

Why would they be on the  _ outside  _ of the walls? That’s dangerous, anybody knows that.

Ren steps inside the temple. The ceiling is high, purple lights flicker, altars to gods that she’s never even  _ heard of  _ ring the room. And there is a fairly old drow woman, sitting on a bench and leaning against the wall, in the entry way. She wears silver robes, in the same style as the temple robes back home-- well, not home. Back at the temple of Lolth. It’s not Ren’s home any longer: she doesn’t have one.

The woman’s eyes are closed: meditation, or sleep. Ren  _ really _ hopes she’s not dead because honestly she just can’t handle that right now.

“Hello?” she says. She doesn’t want to bother her but also her leg is  _ throbbing  _ and Ren’s not sure she can make it anywhere else in A’Dareal. Plus she doesn’t have any money either, so. “Um, excuse me, ma’am?”

The woman’s eyes snap open: bright red. Ren stops talking immediately. But she doesn’t say anything: she just stares at Ren, for a long time. It’s only her years of training at the temple of Lolth that help her resist the urge to fidget, to turn and run.

After a long moment, she says, “Ren.” And a smile curves across her face, softening it. “Welcome. My name is Hylin.”

“How-- how’d you know my name?!”

Hylin-- she’s gotta be six hundred at  _ least _ \-- shrugs, ever so slightly. “Divination magic. You’re abjuration, correct?”

“I never specialized,” she says, words faltering.

“Oh. Hmm. Well, you will be. Likely. There’s a future-- hmm.” Hylin closes her eyes again, and Ren stands in the middle of the empty room for the long moment before she looks up again. “Perhaps evocation. But likely abjuration.”

A beat. Ren doesn’t know what to say.

Hylin smiles. “Apologies, child. You are uncomfortable.”

“Is that the... divination magic?”

“No. I still have eyes. I’m not  _ that _ old.”

She can’t help the weak smile that crosses her face, and Hylin laughs, more of a cackle really, pushing herself to her feet, leaning on a cane. “What can I do for you?”

“Can’t you just, uh, see it?”

“Yes, but. Hmm. People think it’s polite to ask.”

“Oh.”

“Hmm. Have to call a cleric about that leg.”

“I-- I, you don’t have to--”

“Pshaw. I don’t have to do anything. I’m old! I  _ want  _ to.”

“...oh.” Ren likes Hylin, can’t help it, but this isn’t how things work. People don’t just-- do nice things for people just  _ because _ . Even Cordelia and Jegvir had needed her to help hide whatever they were smuggling. “How much?”

“How much what?”

“Am I... gonna owe you?” she only vaguely knows how money works-- it wasn’t a thing in the temple of Lolth, at least not for Ren-- but she knows how owing works. 

Hylin just looks at Ren, for a very long time, and then she closes her eyes. Ren stands there, leaning heavily on her stolen spear, until Hylin opens her eyes again. “That is not how it works here,” she says, finally. “And nobody will, hmm. Expect you to conceal smuggled goods. Ah. You are uncomfortable again!”

“Yeah,” she manages. “Yeah, um...”

“Do not worry, Ren! I make many people uncomfortable!” Hylin switches her cane to her other hand, beckons Ren towards her and a small door behind the altars. “Come along. I’ll call that cleric. How are you finding A’Dareal?”

“I--”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s a bit overwhelming. Hmm. Yes, the ceiling is very high up. They do bat races, you ought to see one while you’re here, which won’t be for too long now that I’m thinking about it. Hmm.”

“What do you mean I-- I won’t--”

“Oh, you’re not gonna die, don’t be silly.” Ren gulps; Hylin tugs open the door and ushers her into the small room. She limps into it, tilting her spear so it fits through the doorway, and looks around. It’s like a vestibule; it’s small, and there’s a bench, and a counter, and a couple chairs all squished into the corner with purple lights floating overhead. “Sit down!”

Ren likes to think she’s more cautious than that. But she’s barely on her feet: she sits, heavily, and winces as the movement jolts her infected leg.

“Take off that armor,” instructs Hylin, stepping back towards the door. “I’ll be back with, hmm. The cleric!”

“Okay,” says Ren. “I, um, thank--”

The door shuts.

“--you.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!! please leave a comment and kudos to let me know what you think so far, or come chat with me on my tumblr [@onArete](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/onarete)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren ascends, and watches a show.

Hylin returns after a couple of hours. Ren spends those hours painstakingly taking off the armor on her leg, unwrapping her attempts at bandages, and then very studiously avoiding looking at the gash left on her leg. She re-packs her rune-making kit and re-braids her hair and cleans her glasses on the ragged hem of her cloak. She tries to meditate but can’t quite do it.

There’s a knock on the door: Ren jumps.

“Come in,” she says, after a very long moment when she realizes that that’s probably what Hylin’s waiting for.

The door eases open. Hylin stands there, and next to her, a-- a  _ human _ ! A man, Ren thinks, with skin that’s brown instead of purple, with hair that’s black instead of white or silver or any other common drow color. He’s wearing a long coat and holding a bag, and when they make eye contact, he smiles. His teeth aren’t pointed at  _ all _ .

Her ears flick backwards, nervous. Minril scurries around the back of her neck and onto her other shoulder.

“Hello, Ren,” he says, in heavily accented Undercommon.

“Hello,” she manages.  _ Humans probably don’t actually eat babies _ . And besides his teeth aren’t pointy so that wouldn’t even make sense. 

“I’m Doctor Jonathon Loven; call me Jonathon.”

“Okay.”

“Hylin says you’ve got a nasty cut on your leg?”

“Um, yeah,” she says, nervous. Ren has  _ no clue  _ how she’s supposed to act in this situation. And sure Hylin said she wouldn’t have to pay the doctor but what if she  _ does  _ and--

“Can you put your leg up on the bench so I can take a look at it?”

Ren swings her injured leg up-- well, she tries to. She can’t quite get it to do that, she she just... sorta picks it up and thunks it back down up on the bench. She can practically  _ feel  _ Hylin and the doctor-- Jonathon-- staring at her. She can  _ actually _ feel an embarrassed blush tinging the tips of her ears.

Jonathon doesn’t say anything, thank the gods. He just kneels down, looking at her leg. “Okay,” he says, slowly. “I think a cure wounds modified with remove curse to remove the infection should do it. Is that okay?”

“Please, jus’-- jus’ fix it.”

Jonathon nods, very carefully pressing his hands-- they’re shockingly warm-- onto Ren’s leg. And then there is a surge of warmth but it’s not painful like the lights used to be: it reminds her of dreams, and golden hair, and lights hanging in the sky and a woman calling to her.

\---

The scar isn’t gone but she can  _ feel her leg  _ again and it doesn’t hurt when she stands on it, she can bend her knee and her ankle and jump and Hylin has a satisfied smile and Jonathon repacks his medical bag.

“Thank you so much,” says Ren, bent forwards to strap her armor back onto her leg. “I-- thank you.”

“No need to thank us,” says Hylin, with a smile. “Is that-- oh, Rennie. I’ll be right back,” says Hylin, and leaves very quickly for her age.

“If you get hurt like that again,” says Jonathon, watching Hylin leave, “Try to get it treated as soon as possible. You did a good job with the bandage as is, though.”

“You might want to invest in a first aid kit,” he says, and he’s going to say more but then there’s a huge  _ thud  _ and the ringing of metal against stone coming from the other side of the door-- where Hylin is!-- and Jonathon and Ren make eye contact.

Oh,  _ crap _ .

She jolts to her feet-- he grabs his medicine bag and the door handle-- Ren almost grabs the spear but it’s too tall for the door anyway and grabs out her wand instead. Jonathon pushes open the door, and both of them tumble out into the temple.

Hylin stands in the middle of the ring of alters, a purple protective bubble spun around her. Two tall drow women-- wearing the same black robes as Warrior Usyne-- are in front of her, one with a huge sword drawn, having just hit the ground.

The two Warriors turn to Ren and Jonathon.

“ **Ex-Guardian Rensi** ,” says one of them. ““ **I am Warrior Vasley, representative of Lolth. You are hereby charged with Treason and Heresy of the highest degree. Your sentence is immediate death** .”

“ _ No _ ,” says Jonathon, and a shimmering white shield blooms between Ren and the Warriors.

“No,” whispers Ren, trying to stop her hand from shaking as she raises her wand.

“No!” shouts Hylin, then cackles, the barrier around her dropping, and suddenly a blast of energy slams into the Warriors, sending them sprawling to the floor. She looks dead at Ren like she can see all that she has ever done and will do. “Rennie. Go. You can’t stay in A’Dareal.”

Ren gulps. Nods.

And runs, her newly healed leg steady.

\---

Ren runs until she can’t run any more, on the edges of the dark streets of A’Dareal, and when she stops she takes off her cloak altogether and fashions it into a sort of head scarf that covers the scar across her face, her glasses now the only part of her face visible. She hopes that her armor isn’t distinctive, doesn’t have a way to know if it is or if it isn’t. She just keeps her head down and works her way through the dying nightlife crowds of A’Dareal, mostly drow but some half-drow and even one or two humans who are given a wide berth by everybody else. Ren finds her way, not to the edge of the cavern, but to a huddle of other drow who, like her, seem to have nowhere to go. She spends the nights with them on a dingy street corner, answering only in shrugs, wishing she could hide. She can’t meditate, even though some of the other homeless drow do.

But it’s better than running all night, when one person running would be suspicious, at least in the main city.

The next morning Ren gets directions to Barrivir-- the last city between A’Dareal-- from one of the drow. She thanks them, tugs nervously at the makeshift scarf that covers the scars on her face, and hurries on.

\---

It takes Ren three weeks to get to Barrivir. Jonathon healed her leg, but now she’s scared, maybe more so than she’s ever been. She doesn’t rush anywhere, can’t afford to. If the Warriors come for her again for betraying the temple of Lolth-- well, Ren’s reasonably self aware and she’s pretty sure that she wouldn’t survive that encounter. 

So her safety lies on blending in.

It’s probably a good thing that her childhood was one spent in tunnels and inside of hollow walls, because it means that Ren is very very good at being quiet, at being unobtrusive, at being barely-there. She keeps her head down, walks with the crowd, shrugs off any questions the other travellers to Barrivir ask her. She spends a day or two with a group at a time before outpacing them before they start to ask questions she can’t shrug off like  _ who are you really  _ and  _ where are you going  _ and  _ why are you running so far _ .

So Ren doesn’t talk, much, but she sure does listen.

And the people going there sure love to talk about Barrivir.

“It’s dangerous,” says one old drow man with maybe four teeth in total. “Too many surface-folk! Too many people! Bah!”

“It’s  _ wonderful _ ,” gushes a half-drow even younger than Ren is. “There’s so many people-- all sort of people, too, humans and dwarves and elves and gnomes and everybody, really-- and it feels so much  _ bigger  _ than the lower cities! It really is bigger, too. I get lost super easy, but sometimes that’s fun!”

“It’s confusing,” says a drow in their three hundreds or so, wearing glasses and the robes of a scholar. “The culture is a shocking mix of Underdark values of discretion and secrecy, yet it’s been so full of descendents from the surface that such values are constantly in turmoil.”  _ Their _ answer, at least, isn’t very helpful to Ren.

Barrivir is huge, she hears. It is scary, it is exhilarating, it is “ _ the  _ place to be.” But mostly what she hears is that Barrivir is a city to get lost in.

Which is  _ exactly _ what Ren needs.

\---

When Ren arrives in Barrivir, she finds a place to sleep in a hostel that’s nothing more than space for a bed mat and sleeping with her wand in hand but it’s better than nothing. She still dreams of the golden-haired woman and the lights on the ceiling but the woman doesn’t speak to her, or if she does, Ren can’t hear it. She finds work in the kitchen of an actually  _ nice _ inn, but nobody wants to work there-- because, see, the Spired Inn is where all the non-drow visitors stay when they come to Barrivir.

But Ren doesn’t mind it. It turns out humans don’t actually eat drow babies-- but they really, really like steak, and mashed potatoes, and one woman ate all their strawberries and then screamed bloody murder at Ren when she told her they were out. But customers are gross no matter if they’re drow or human or gnome or whatever.

For the most part, though, Ren  _ likes  _ her job. The head chef tells her what to make, and she does, clumsily at first but she’s getting better every day.

It takes her back to her dining hall shifts when she was still an Acolyte.

It reminds her of designing runes as a Guardian, making something out of nothing. It feels good. It feels  _ right _ .

The customers mostly speak Common, though, and Ren’s only ever heard  _ Under _ common. But as it turns out, she’s a quick study at languages-- kinda like she was when she was learning runes. After a couple of months she can follow along with almost everything the customers say.

Ren works at the Spired Inn for six months before she dares to go to work without the scarf wrapped around her face. The head chef doesn’t even blink, just tells her to get busy on the bread, and that if there’s extra dough she can experiment with sugar levels but  _ absolutely not before then _ .

(Her sugar-bread was  _ good _ , and she’ll stand by that.)

Two months later, Ren has started changing every recipe she makes, the mixture of every drink she mixes. If anybody complains she just tells them it’s a local recipe. But hardly anybody complains, because see, Ren  _ gets  _ food.

It makes sense to her, just like the runes did. Parts that build upon each other and expand: if you change one, the whole effect can be altered. If you change it  _ just right _ , though, you make it  _ better _ .

She serves waffles with chocolate-salted drizzle that the chef said would be disgusting but the customers love. She makes parfaits out of late-summer (summer is something she’s learning about now, too, about fruits and crops from the  _ surface _ !) watermelon with ground-up plum seeds and the people rave about them. The Spired Inn starts to get people coming in not to spend the night, but just to eat the food.  _ Ren’s  _ food. 

(She’s proud, knows she probably shouldn’t be ‘cause it’s not like it’s even  _ her  _ kitchen-- she still sleeps in that sketchy hostel with all her worldly belongings in a bag she curls around at night-- but still. This food, this success? This is  _ hers _ .)

The day after Ren’s eighteenth birthday a poster is hung in the lobby of the Spired Inn. It is neon yellow, it is adorned with moving, magical, sparkly purple letters. When you touch it, it shoots fantasy confetti at your face.

It is like nothing she has ever seen before in her  _ life _ .

The poster reads:

_ Sizzle it Up with Taako _ !

_ One night only! Cooking and magic for the modern day! _

_ Ticket: 10 GP. _

Ren can’t afford that ticket. But it’s just...

Sizzle it Up with Taako, whoever they are, sounds...  _ new _ . It’s so  _ different  _ from everything Ren’s life has been so far. Plus, cooking AND magic?! What are the  _ odds _ ?!

Well, it’s not like she can afford it anyway.

Except sometimes now when Ren dreams, she sees the golden-haired woman, and sometimes she sees the bright visual assault of the poster:  _ Sizzle it Up with Taako! _

\---

Two weeks later, the menu on the breakfast is for fantasy coffee cake. Ren adds cream cheese, fresh cranberries, pops it in the oven, and has it out and magically warmed on the buffet before even the earliest rising guests have woken. She vaguely wonders if an orange glaze would go well with it-- or maybe a dipping sauce, or even a well-paired juice? But she doesn’t think anything more about it-- goes back to the eggs, and the bread that needs to be made before the lunch rush. 

It’s maybe five hours later when somebody bursts into the kitchen.

It’s an elven man, with tan skin, and a hat so big and bright and  _ sparkly  _ that it almost hurts Ren’s eyes to look at it. His hair is long and bleached-blonde and braided, and everything from his fancy shoes to his dramatic cape screams  _ wizard _ . In his hands, he holds a plate from breakfast with just one thing on it-- one of Ren’s mini coffee cakes with cream cheese and cranberries.

“Who made this?” he demands.

Ren glances over her shoulder, away from the dough she’s kneading. It’s just herself and the head chef there, and the chef only shrugs.

“I did,” Ren says, slowly. This is a paying customer so she can’t just up and demand that he leave the kitchen. “I’m sorry, sir, could we, um, talk outside of the kitchen? It’s a contamination-free zone--”

“Yeah, fuck, I’m not  _ contaminating  _ anything,” he says, still holding that plate. “I know how  _ food safety  _ works.”

“Um--”

“Oh, shit, didn’t introduce myself. Hail and well met!” He shifts the plate to one hand and kind of lazily extends his other hand for a handshake. Ren’s hands are covered in dough, but he doesn’t seem phased. “I’m  _ Taako _ . You know, from  _ Sizzle it Up with Taako _ ?”

“Oh my god,” says Ren. “You’re  _ Taako  _ from the  _ poster _ !”

“Yeah, and, uh,  _ Sizzle it Up with Taako _ , trademark trademark trademark. Now. You made this fantasy coffee cake?”

“Yeah, I already said that--”

“It’s not a bad  _ start _ ! Add some orange zest, really make the flavors pop. Now, I can  _ tell  _ you’re a chef. Are you coming to my show?” Taako says all of this very quickly and with absolute, perfect authority, like it’s his kitchen.

“I’m not,” she says, after a long moment. “I-- it sounds really cool--”

“Excuse you, it is  _ very fucking  _ cool.”

“Yeah, that, but I can’t afford that. I’m real sorry?”

“Hm,” says Taako, and he leans backward in a way that Ren would call  _ unnecessarily dangerous  _ if it didn’t seem like Taako just. Is Like That. “Well, good chat.”

And he turns on his heel and is out the swinging door before she can even blink.

\---

The next day is the one and only Underdark showing of  _ Sizzle it Up with Taako _ ! Ren pretends very much that she is unaware of this. She cooks breakfast and lunch and then--

“Ren, front desk,” hollers Z’ress, one of the receptionists.

“Coming,” she yells back, trying to calm the tinge of panic that’s already building in her gut as she washes her hands. If it were the Warriors, she wouldn’t be being called up to the front desk. They’d already be killing her. That strain of logic doesn’t really make her feel any better.

“Somebody dropped this off?” says Z’ress when Ren finally makes her way out to the front desk, wand quietly tucked into her belt. The receptionist hands her a small slip of paper-- neon yellow, printed with purple. “They said it was just for, uh, the real young girl in the kitchen which I figured was you?”

“Yeah,” Ren manages, fingers tight around the paper. “I, um, I gotta go.”

She runs back to the kitchen before Z’ress, always friendly and outgoing, can ask her what the paper is or who would be dropping things off for her. Thankfully, the chef isn’t there, and Ren steps back by the ovens where nobody ever goes to read it.

_ Admit 1: Sizzle it Up with Taako! _

It gives the place and time and date and that’s  _ tonight _ , that’s TONIGHT and it’s an actual, real ticket to  _ Sizzle it Up with Taako!  _ and it’s for  _ Ren _ !

Of course she’s going, it’s not even a question. In the whirlwind of moments when Taako barged into the kitchen, he insulted her fantasy coffee cake, gave a suggestion, and told her she was a promising chef. Of  _ course  _ she’s going!

It is the first actual event she’s gone to that hasn’t been just  _ work  _ since she arrived in Barrivar. Ren puts the scarf back on over her face, takes it off. Puts it on, takes it off. Desperately weighs her desire to have Taako recognize her and see that she  _ got the ticket he sent her _ , that’s so  _ nice _ \-- and torn between the desperate, desperate fear that the sunburst scar on her face will be recognized and somebody will piece it together with the Ex-Guardian Rensi who’s been sentenced to death by Lolth’s Warriors and send them after her.

But she really wants Taako to see that she came.

Screw it. Ren’s eighteen, she’s got twelve gp saved up in the pouch she wears on her belt and she’s caught up on rent. She’s a pretty decent wizard and she can cook a damn good souffle. 

And besides,  _ Sizzle it Up!  _ is gonna be packed with people. She’ll see the Warriors coming a mile off.

Ren tucks her scarf into her bag, pushes her glasses up her nose, and grips her ticket tighter. She leaves the Spired Inn and turns, for the first time, right instead of left. Her back is straight, her steps are sure. She’s going.

The crowd tells her she’s in the right place more so than any of the bright, neon signs that point the way down the road to  _ Sizzle it Up with Taako! _ Ren almost turns around right then and there: there’s just  _ so  _ many people, that’s gotta be unsafe, she should just go back to the hostel and get a good nights’ sleep, she should turn around, she  _ should _ \--

She shoulders her bag, resolute. She’s come this far, hasn’t she?

Ren finds herself in a long line, passing by a ticket booth-- they stamp a complicated seven-pointed star into her ticket but give it back to her, and she tucks it securely away into her pocket. And then she’s caught up in the crowd, sweeping into a large stone building and into her seat: row D, seat 17.

Now that there’s no Warriors imminent, now that her ticket was proved legit-- well, Ren’s getting excited. The woman sitting next to her is practically  _ bouncing  _ and she’s really not that much better.

The lights dim, and there’s a roar of applause. Then, some disembodied and magically enhanced voice booms out over the crowd: “ _ Sizzle it Up with Taako!  _ is run by an  _ expert _ , and his advice should  _ always  _ be followed. Taako insists that he’s a sexpert, but if there’s a degree in the stagecoach, I haven’t seen it. Also, this show isn’t for beginners or baby chefs, which I mention only so the babies out there will know how  _ cool  _ they are for attending.” A moment of tense silence. “What’s up, you  _ cool babies _ ?!”

There’s a riff of music. The crowd-- half of whom seem to be wearing printed t-shirts proclaiming the brand name-- goes wild. Ren looks around her, nervous, then grins.

Screw it!

She yells into the din of noise, jubilant. And then, onto the well-lit stage set with a cooking counter, walks Taako, in all his sequined glory, waving.

If possible, the crowd screams even louder. A hundred hands waving in the air, waving back at Taako. Ren waves, too, until her arm hurts from the frantic motion.

Taako leans against the counter, lazily picks up a bowl. He makes a couple of attempts to quiet the crowd, but every time the applause builds right back up again. After this goes on for a couple of minutes, he pulls out a  _ highly  _ stereotypical wizard wand-- star on the top and everything-- and points it at himself.

“Hello, Barrivir!” he says, voice magically amplified. Everybody yells-- because that’s  _ them _ , that’s  _ their city _ , and Taako is  _ there _ ! The energy in the room is infectious. Ren can’t remember the last time she smiled this much. “And welcome to  _ Sizzle it Up  _ with moi--  _ Taako _ !”

Another roar of applause.

“Woah,  _ lovin’ _ all the love,” says Taako. “But let’s tone it down a little bit, huh? I’m here to teach you all to be better cooks-- though if you wanna just sit and scream at me for a while that’s cool too.”

The crowd screams. Taako raises his hands in the air like he’s conducting the noise, and then abruptly drops his hands. The room falls silent.

“There,” he says, very satisfied, winking at the crowd, which ripples with applause as he walks around the counter to the other side, setting down the bowl. “I know we’re all  _ jazzed  _ to start doin’ some cookin’ today, so here’s our recipe--” his words are almost laden with magic but it’s not magic, it’s just  _ Taako _ , which might be even more enthralling-- and the crowd leans forward-- “ _ Quiche lorraine _ .”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please know that when I got to write "sizzle it up with Taako" I had a physical rush of excitement
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading! we're moving very quickly towards canon parts of Ren's backstory, so keep an eye out for that! please leave a comment and kudos if you're liking this fic so far, and keep an eye out on wednesday for Chapter 6!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren runs-- and then, for the first time in her life, she rests.

Taako leaves Barrivir-- leaves the Underdark altogether-- the next morning, his purple-neon-glitter- _ beautiful  _ mess of a stagecoach bouncing along the steep roads that led to the Surface. It draws a crowd as it leaves, if only because it’s such a spectacle. Ren pokes her head out the kitchen window when it drives away from Spired Inn, and Taako is also leaning out the window, waving frantically at the masses of people staring at him, laughing at it all.

Ren watches him go with something like  _ longing  _ heavy on her tongue.

That night the golden-haired woman in her dreams speaks again.

“Ren,” she says.

And for the first time, Ren is able to respond. “Um, yeah?”

The woman smiles, reaching her hand toward her, welcoming. “Ren. Are you going to follow?”

“Follow who? I-- I’m real sorry, but, who are you?”

The woman’s smile just curves up, softer, more genuine. “Are you going to follow the lights?”

And then she wakes up.

The next night:

“Are you going to go further?”

And the next: 

“Are you going to be happy, Ren?”

“I’m happy right now,” she protests, and she can taste the sourness of the lie in the air.

“No, you’re not,” says the woman. “Ren, I know you, and you are not happy at all. You want to create and grow,  _ you  _ want to be the one growing.”

“Like, plants on the surface?”

“No, Ren.  _ You  _ want to grow.”

“I don’t understand-- I don’t understand anything!”

The woman reaches out her arm but like  _ always  _ when Ren reaches back she can’t touch her.

“What don’t you understand?”

“Who  _ are  _ you? Why do you keep, keep showin’ up in my dreams?” The dream pans up to the black black ceiling sprinkled with lights that are unlike any Ren’s ever seen before. “What are  _ those _ ?!”

“Dear Ren,” says the woman--

And then Ren wakes up.

The woman is not in her dreams the next night.

Or the next.

Or the next.

A week later, Ren pauses by the receptionist’s desk on her way home-- well, on her way to the hostel-- from work. Z’ress is packing her bag to leave, too, and she smiles a practiced, customer-ready grin up at Ren when she pauses.

“Heya, Ren! What’s up?”

“So, this is gonna be a bit of a silly question,” Ren says, forcing herself to smile. “I heard about this thing-- well, really I  _ overheard  _ somebody’s conversation, so I couldn’t go ask ‘em about it, and I thought you might know--”

“Yeah, what is it?!”

“A... like, a really high ceiling, so high you can’t see any stalactites? And there’s all these little lights way up in it, smaller and brighter than the purple ones we’ve got?”

Z’ress tilts her head to the side, slings her bag up onto her shoulder. “D’you mean... stars?”

“Maybe,” Ren says. “What... are those?”

“They’re in the sky,” says Z’ress. “I mean,  _ I’ve  _ never been, but apparently up on the surface there’s not a ceiling-- it’s just open, which honestly sounds kinda scarey!-- and at nighttime there’s little lights up there. Stars.”

“Stars,” she says, rolling the Common word across her tongue like it’s made of the purest honey. “Huh. Thank you.”

“No problem!”

\---

A couple of months later and Ren is almost nineteen, still working at the Spired Inn, still living in the hostel, still with all her worldly belongings packed neatly in a bag that she carries with her wherever she goes. She feels  _ stuck _ , like she’s in the Hole again and she can’t get out and there’s no light even with her superior darkvision.

But she’s smart, and she’s thinking about it.

She’s thinking about the glitz and glamour of Taako, and even though that isn’t really Ren’s thing, she’s thinking about just how  _ confident  _ he always seemed, and how he was  _ thriving _ . He didn’t seem to be missing a single thing in the world, even if he did seem kinda lonely up there on that big stage all by himself. But maybe that’s something Ren could get on the surface too-- not a stage, but  _ confidence _ .

She’s already pretty dang confident about her cooking, about her runes, about the Jerk Remover spell she’s starting to develop for emergencies. She’s even more confident in handling Minril, who’s refused to run off when she sets him down outside and instead stays in her bag at work (food contamination!) and otherwise rides around on her shoulder. 

But she hates that she still stammers when she’s nervous, hates that it’s hard to talk to strangers, hates that she still can barely talk to the group of girls she shares a hostel room with and has for the past almost-two-years.

Ren is thinking about growth, thinking about growing. Not just plants: growing  _ herself _ . Changing. Not staying stagnant like she’s been for so long, for too long.

She is thinking about this on her way to work one morning and so sure, she’s a little distracted--

But then she rounds a corner and there’s an entire dang  _ wall  _ of Warriors, just standing in the middle of the street, and Ren  _ freezes _ .

Judgement day has come for her at last--

Somebody must’ve seen her uncovered face and put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out just why a cook wears the scars of an Acolyte of Lolth and--

“ **Ex-Guardian Rensi** ,” the Warrior women boom in unison, their voices achingly loud and horrible, “ **We are Warriors, representatives of Lolth. You are hereby charged with Treason and Heresy of the highest degree. Your sentence is immediate death** .”

Ren is running before she can even process what’s happening--

This time, her legs are strong, and she’s got her bag on her back and her wand in her hand--

There’s a clamour behind her as the people of Barrivir--  _ gods bless them, gods bless them all _ \-- step into the street, vendors and pedestrians shouting at the Warriors, “You’re not the police!” and “Hey! Stop that!” and “Put that sword down!”

Ren runs. There is the sting of a crossbow bolt in her shoulder and she points her wand backward without looking, rune-making skills alight as she gouges a deep, deep trench in the middle of the street, hears the chaos of the Warriors having to stop their pursuit, take a different road. Find a way over.

And then she runs alone through streets she’s walked only once before-- pedestrians and battlewagons swerving out of her way as she charges up the steep hill-- up the hill to the place where  _ Sizzle it Up with Taako!  _ Was held, up and up and up.

Her calves are burning and Ren can barely breathe, the old scar along her leg feels hot like it’s gonna split right back open but she can’t stop, she can’t stop--

A cluster of Warriors burst out of an alleyway on her right. 

She can’t stop.

A quick, magical buff of speed that she learned one slow day from Z’ress--

A quick and desperate plea to any god that may be listening-- “ _ Please please I’m begging you let me escape them let me live please oh please _ \--”

Spells fired blindly over her shoulder--

A slash across her back, deep and horrible. Ren falls forward, up the hill, screaming. Her arm jerks backward and she fires off a spell instinctively at the Warrior who stands over her, her sword dripping with Ren’s blood, ready to kill--

_ Jerk Remover _ . 

The Warrior goes flying. Ren spits the blood out of her mouth and pushes herself back to her feet, keeps running.

Her back doesn’t hurt as much as it should and she really can’t feel her legs much at all, and when she dares look over her shoulder back down the steep steep hill towards Barrivir she sees that only two of the Warriors are still pursuing her--

She keeps running, pushes her glasses up her nose, panting--

Oh, gods. Gods above and below.

There is nowhere further for Ren to run. Because ahead of her is the exit: ahead of her is the  _ exit to the Underdark _ . She can see streams of light, white and bright and painful even to look at, drifting into the mouth of the cavern.

Ren is an expert in how light burns: the marks of that are written all over her face.

It’s light or death and those choices might be one and the same.

Ren keeps running. She runs to the light, spinning to a stop right before she steps out of the cavern, out of the cave, out from under the overhang and into the blinding, blinding day of the surface. She points her wand at the ceiling, just above where the two Warriors follow her.

“I will  _ live _ ,” she pants, the taste of blood heavy in her mouth, and Ren carves a chunk of ceiling away. It slams down in front of the Warriors-- she hears the footsteps of the rest of them, following, following,  _ always following how gods-damned long will she have to run from them _ \--

Ren runs up the last slope, out of the darkness, and into the sun.

_ Gods _ , it burns like nothing she’s ever felt before, but she keeps  _ running  _ and  _ running _ until her feet slide out from under her on the slippery red-orange ground and her ears are burning and her face is burning and her arms are burning and--

The world of light is swallowed up by darkness and Ren welcomes the escape.

\---

Ren wakes up in flashes, and always in the dark.

A worried man-- human, with dark brown skin and short-cropped hair-- standing over her, holding hands with a very small young girl. His daughter? She’s wearing yellow, and she steps towards Ren--

A short, squat, and wrinkled human woman, with lighter brown skin and gray hair, peering into a crystal--

A high elven person, wearing an oversize poncho, their hands extended towards Ren with the glow of some sort of almost-familiar magic--

Another human man, a different one, with a big moustache, looking concerned--

Two human men, with bushy beards, humming over her, some sort of religious ritual only it doesn’t hurt like Lolth’s would and there’s a wash of healing magic and--

When Ren wakes up and stays awake for the first time, she is alone. She blinks, groggy, and by the time she forces her eyes open she’s remembered why everything is fuzzy: her glasses. Where  _ are  _ they?

She’s in a bed, for sure, and after fumbling around for a bit with bandaged hands-- why are her hands  _ bandaged _ ?-- she finds her glasses on a bedside table, carefully folded. When Ren puts them on, one frame is cracked.

Gods, now would be a really good time to be a cleric and know mending, wouldn’t it?

Ren can’t help it-- she laughs. And then she claps her hands over her mouth, because, um, where  _ is  _ she?

She looks around the room, breathing quickening. Ren is sitting in a bed, thick quilts tucked around her. She’s not wearing her armor, or her wand, or her rune-making kit: instead, she’s wearing a long... dress? Kind of like a robe except it’s fabric is lighter and it’s got little flower patterns on it--

The dress isn’t important.

Her back hurts a  _ lot _ and everything else hurts like-- well,  _ also _ a lot. Nothing feels great!

The room is small and dark, just the bed and the nightstand with a lamp that’s turned off. There’s a rocking chair in the corner and a chest of drawers and a door. There’s a window, too, though somebody’s covered it up with some sort of heavy fabric.

Ren pushes back the quilts, clumsy with bandages on her hands, and shifts her legs off the bed. She’s barefoot. She needs to find her wand. She needs to find out what is going on. Is she  _ dead _ ?

She doesn’t feel dead; it hurts too much. 

Besides, you’re supposed to go to the Astral Plane when you die, aren’t you? And nobody’s ever said anything about the Astral Plane having beds and bandages and rocking chairs but who is Ren to know what the Astral Plane has or doesn’t?

It hurts to move, and she kinda just wants to lie back down, but--  _ no _ .

Ren has taken too many things easily. This won’t be one of them.

Inch by painstaking inch, she pushes herself to a standing position. The floor is cool against her feet, and she sways, hands back on the bed for a moment to keep her balance. It’s a full-body effort to make it across the room-- gods, it  _ hurts _ \-- but she makes it to the wall and the door, grabs the handle. Twists it open.

And stands there blinking until her eyes adjust to the light.

It’s not that the door opens to bright sunlight: just there’s a hallway, or maybe a landing off a staircase? Ren can’t quite tell, but it’s bright, and once she can see that it  _ is  _ a landing, she steps out onto it, grabbing heavily onto the railing, squinting into the light and looking around.

“Ah. Hello, Ren.” The voice is high-pitched and adorable, speaking in Common-- thank the gods Ren learned Common at the Spired Inn. The voice is also very,  _ very  _ old.

Ren physically jumps-- which  _ really  _ hurts-- grabbing tighter onto the railing of the staircase to keep her footing. Standing in front of her is a very short, very squat, human woman. Her skin is dark, her hair is gray, and her glasses match Ren’s almost perfectly.

“How d-- d’you know my name?” Ren asks, her voice raspy. “I-- who are you?”

“My name is Paloma,” she says, with a small shrug, reaching up a hand to Ren. Ren, unsure, takes her hand. “You are safe now. Come.”

“Um,” says Ren, trying to pull her hand away.

Paloma fixes her with a glare that would do Captain Nulrae proud. “Come.”

Ren goes-- one hand leaning heavily against Paloma, and the other on the railing, as they make their way downstairs. Here, too, the windows are blocked off by some heavy fabric, though oil lamps flicker hospitably on the walls. Ren glances around the room-- it’s kind of like the dining room at the Spired Inn. At the back of the room is a bar, with empty, dusty shelves behind it, and a door leading to what she figures is probably the kitchen. Circular tables are scattered throughout, and a rinky upright piano is pushed against the wall. There's even one of those shuffleboard games that Z’ress always wanted to get for the Inn.

“I’m sorry,” Ren says, when she realizes she’s just staring. “I, um. I don’t mean to be rude, but where am I?”

Paloma leads her through the room and through a door to a small... sitting room? Anyway, there’s less dust, and there’s a couch that she points for Ren to sit down on. Ren sits.

“You are in Refuge,” says Paloma, lighting one of the oil lamps. “You are from Relonar, yes?”

“I--” there’s a familiar twinge of panic in her gut. “How did you know that?!”

“Oh. I am divination witch. See things, future, past. I saw you coming, sent Jack and June out to pick you up.”

“I...” that explanation doesn’t really make Ren feel better. 

“Your things, yes?” Paloma picks up a wrapped up bundle from the coffee table and sets it in Ren’s lap. “I saw that if you had your wand you may have attacked me and so here it is.”

With clumsy fingers and twinging back, Ren unwraps the bundle. There’s  _ her  _ bag-- her armor, her clothes-- her rune-making kit and her dagger and her wand. She pulls out the wand, clutching it as tight as she’s able to. Minril-- Minril! She never would’ve thought she’d be so excited to see a spider!-- crawls out, too, and over to Paloma. 

Minril seems to like her, and for her part, the witch doesn’t seem at all bothered by Minril climbing up to perch on her shoulder.

“Thank you,” Ren says, after a long moment. “But...”

“Refuge is in desert,” says Paloma. Ren reminds herself that the old witch is a  _ divination  _ witch, that she can see every question Ren has a mile before it arrives. “You exited the Underdark five days ago, almost dead. Jack and June picked you up, burnt and bleeding, brought you here. The Brothers healed you as best they could, but some of it is just the natural process.”

“Oh.”

“Come,” says Paloma, and offers Ren a hand. She pulls her to her feet: surprisingly strong for her size, for her age. And Paloma crosses the room to a doorway.

“Isn’t it-- the sun?” asks Ren, voice faltering.

“Is night. You need to see.”

Ren takes a deep breath. She’s not a very trusting person, but something about the way Paloma chooses words-- something about the smell of dust in this huge and empty building-- something about the warm flicker of oil lamps, a light that doesn't burn, feels like home.

She can choose to grow. She can choose to trust. She follows Paloma to the door, and the woman opens it, and they step outside together.

It is dark: it’s night. The landscape is flat and wide and Ren’s not sure what she’s supposed to be looking at until--

“Look up,” Paloma orders.

Ren does.

The ceiling above her-- no, the  _ sky _ , the  _ real real  _ ** _sky_ ** \-- is patterned with a thousand million tiny dots of lights like suspended gemstones, like teardrops, whirling with purples and blacks and blues and--

“Stars,” she whispers.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're in Refuge now!!! expect the events of 11th Hour coming shortly!!
> 
> if you enjoyed this story, please leave me a comment and a kudos! they really, honestly make my day :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Refuge is a shambley, desert town, full of good people who try so, so hard. Ren finds an unexpected home there-- but tragedy follows, too.

Ren is wary of Refuge until she starts to meet the people and then she’s more wary: but not because they’re bad. Because they’re so,  _ so  _ good. No matter where Ren went in the Underdark nobody had ever been consistently kind, not for long. And if they were then soon enough Ren brought the Warriors down upon them and ruined their lives.

So she’s wary because she doesn’t want to ruin their lives, too.

There’s Paloma, of course, who as it turns out is very much a stereotypical witch who lives in the woods. She also makes  _ decadent  _ scones, and they spend a good two hours debating fruit combinations in breakfast foods. Minril loves her.

And then there’s Jack and June. Paloma sent Jack out into the desert to get Ren after seeing a vision, and he did it, brought her home safe. He and his little girl, June-- who’s just the most adorable pipsqueak-- bring her food and new clothes that Jack’s parter left behind when they left. They bring stories about the surface, and new Common words for her to learn, and stories about the mines that Jack works in sometimes, even though he’s now the town Elder. Paloma tells Ren that the red-robed Visitor brought Jack and June to Refuge a couple of years ago-- when Ren asks more about the Visitor, Paloma can’t remember.

It’s probably not important, anyway.

Then there’s Isaak, the sheriff of Refuge. He’s more reserved, but he seems like a good guy. Polite, tips his hat, has to head out because he’s got a meeting he’s running late for.

Ash, the high elf, teaches Ren to play poker. They just laugh when she loses, ridiculously badly, and teaches her to hold a better poker face.

Brogden, the dwarven bank teller, and Cassidy, the orcish explosive extraordinaire-- come to visit Ren with a gift: a huge, huge sunhat, well-woven and decorated with sunflowers. Ren cries when they give it to her, and puts it on immediately. Thus protected from the sun-- with gloves on her hands and not an inch of other skin showing-- Brogden and Cassidy give Ren the grand tour of Refuge.

It’s not a glamourous town, not by any means. Sorta shambley. But shambley in the way that towns are when the people try real hard to keep them nice.

Only one building is in a large state of disrepair, and it’s the one Ren has been staying in with Paloma. Brogden tells her it’s a bar and inn that shut down a couple years ago. She doesn’t pry.

And there are two clerics in Refuge. Ren was scared to meet them-- the only real clerics she’d ever met were Priestesses of Lolth, and you only have to look at the sunburst scar across her face and the sword cut on her back and the slowly-healing burns all over her face and arms to see that those clerics weren’t great. But Luca and Redmond are well-built, and jolly, and eager to tell her all about Istus. Their goddess, the weaver of fate. They didn’t join her retinue until a couple years ago-- which relieves some of her fears about child Acolytes-- and Istus is, according to Luca, “Really, really  _ chill _ !”

It’s a town so wonderful that Ren is afraid to be there, scared that her very presence will taint their lives and call down the Warriors to reign judgement upon them all.

\---

“Well, I don’t see  _ why  _ they’d come after you,” muses Jack one evening. He and Ren are sitting on the back porch of the ramshackle Inn she’s been living at while she recovers. “I mean, these-- you called ‘em Warriors?”

She nods.

“Wouldn’t they have the same problems in the sun as you?”

“I-- well, yeah.”

“And  _ they  _ didn’t have very stylish sunhats.”

Ren blushes slightly, her ears flicking back as she reaches up and readjusts the sunhat that Brogden and Cassidy gave her. “I mean, um, they could always come at night.”

Jack nods, slowly. “That they could. But we’re none too close to the Underdark entrance, anyhow.”

“I-- we’re not?”

“Nope. ‘Bout a two day’s ride. And we’re way outta the way, any Warriors wouldn’t look for you here.”

“I mean-- I just, I don’t want y’all to get hurt--”

“What about Paloma?” asks Jack, cutting off yet another string of rambling apologies. Gods know she’s given him many of them. “Wouldn’t see see ‘em comin’?”

They’re quiet, for a long moment, looking out over the desert and watching the sun set. It’s easy to be quiet around Jack. Ren appreciates that about him.

“Yeah,” she says, finally. “Yeah, I s’ppose so. I just-- I feel  _ bad _ , having you all bring me food and clothes and things and--” she looks down. The next words are hard to force out, but she does. “I wanna  _ belong  _ here. I don’t wanna be the outsider that everybody’s always helpin’, I, I, I wanna be part of Refuge.”

“You are part of Refuge,” Jack says, simply. “But if you want’a job we can do that. What’d Luca say about your back?”

Ren swipes at her eyes--  _ “you are a part of Refuge _ \--” and swallows, hard. “That I’m good to walk now, but not to be jumpin’ and stuff for a while.”

Jack nods, slowly. “You ever though about bein’ a miner, Ren?”

\---

Ren takes one hesitant step into the mines-- sunhat securely on-- and starts to panic. She can’t breathe-- it’s dark, it’s  _ so  _ dark, and yeah she has dark vision but it  _ looks  _ just like-- and it  _ smells  _ just like--

“Ren!” says Jack, grabbing her shoulders as she sways forward. “Ren, Ren, it’s okay, we’re gonna walk out of here, okay?”

The Hole, the Hole, the  _ Hole _ \--

She doesn’t have the breath to respond. He walks around her, carefully pushing her back towards the exit, back into the Quarry, back into the sun.

“It’s okay, Ren,” he repeats, helping her sit against the Quarry wall, sitting next to her. “It’s okay, you’re out. It’s okay. Can you take a breath?”

\---

“Why would you take her to the mines?” asks Paloma, highly disgruntled, over breakfast the next morning with Ren and Jack and June. “Is silly idea. Should have ask me first.”

“What would you have suggested we do then, Paloma?” Jack asks, through a bite of scone.

“Ask me first. What is  _ point  _ of having prophecy witch if you don’t ask her questions, hm?”

“The scones,” says Ren, with a smile.

“Shones!” chirps June, who’s four or five and hasn’t quite mastered the ‘sc-’ sound yet. Ren honestly adores her. She reminds her-- painfully so-- of Achavra, but with just a little less energy. 

“Is good point, Junie,” says Paloma, handing her another scone. “But I know what Ren is to do.”

“An’ what’s that?” asks Jack.

“The Davy Lamp, of course! Is no question!”

Ren and Jack make eye contact, and she’s somewhat relieved to see that he looks as confused as she does.

“Um, what’s the Davy Lamp?” Ren asks, after a moment.

“Is the Inn where you’ve been staying. The sign fell down.

“And what, um, what’m I s’pposed to  _ do  _ with the Davy Lamp?”

“Run it,  _ of course _ ! You are cook, no?”

“...yeah, I am--”

“You have run bars before, no?”

“Yeah, but--”

“You want something to do, yes?”

“Well, yeah--”

“Is settled!”

“But isn’t somebody--”

“Using it? No. You saw the dust. Nobody here wants Davy Lamp but  _ you _ , Ren. Is settled!”

Ren looks over at Jack: how on earth is  _ she  _ supposed to run an-- an inn, a restaurant, a bar-- how is she supposed to run the  _ Davy Lamp _ ?! But Jack is just smiling, the crinkles around his eyes deepening. He shrugs at her as if to say, no sympathy here.

“It’s settled, then?”

Paloma nods, decisively. “Is settled! Have another scone.”

“Well, then,” says Ren, taking one of the scones that Paloma thrusts at her with a smile blooming across her face. This feels good, this feels  _ right _ . “I guess I’m gonna reopen the Davy Lamp.”

\---

The day of the Davy Lamp’s Grand Reopening two years later is almost,  _ almost  _ perfect. The food is good and the drinks are better. Ren’s got the whole place cleaned up, and got Redmond-- who is, as it turns out, a jack of all trades (even though he isn’t, y’know,  _ Jack _ )-- to tune the piano. She’s even got new sawdust in the shuffleboard game. She’ll get around to fixing the too-short leg.

All of Refuge-- which is really just over a hundred people, but still-- comes out to celebrate the Davy Lamp. Everybody loves the drinks, gushes over the food, and Ren finds herself in her element. She stays behind the bar, chatting with the townsfolk she has come to know and love. It’s a fun, flirty atmosphere. The whole town is  _ here  _ and  _ happy  _ and it’s  _ all because of  _ ** _Ren_ ** !

But then the news arrives, in the form of a dusty messenger boy and his equally parched throat.

“The wars have moved up the Sword Coast,” he says to the dead-silent room, after Ren got him a big glass of water and a plate of hot food. “They’re movin’ quick. They sent me ahead to warn all the little towns like y’all-- war’s’ll be here in a couple months, max.”

“Do you have an estimate of how many months, exactly?” asks Jack, the town’s Elder.

The boy nods. “They said ‘bout three.”

Jack takes a deep breath, and thanks the messenger boy. He’s the first guest to stay overnight in the newly reopened Davy Lamp, but just like that, the atmosphere inside the bar is gone. The Wars-- up ‘till now-- had been distant things that sometimes Jack would comment on but really nothing to worry about. But now they are coming for Refuge. Now they are coming for Ren’s home, for her family.

She steps out from behind the bar, intercepting June in a frantic dash across the room somewhere or other, spinning her around in a hug. The Wars are coming but Ren’s little-- well, sorta-family, sorta-friends?-- they’re right here, right now.

“Hey, Junie!”

“Ren! Lemme go!” June’s older now, seven- _ almost-eight _ , but she’s human. Sure the temple of Lolth wasn’t exactly easy on kids, but by elf standards June’s practically a  _ baby _ .

“Sure, sure,” says Ren, grinning, releasing her from the hug. “Gonna go play shuffleboard?”

She shakes her head. “It’s uneven. Bye!” And she’s off again like a flash, like the world--  _ the Wars are coming _ \-- hasn’t just changed all around her.

Ren meets Jack’s eye from across the room. He looks solemn, and scared. When she looks around the room for Paloma, the witch is nowhere to be seen.

It’s getting late. Nobody wants to leave, wants to face the fact that in three months war will descend upon Refuge. Nobody wants to go face the new world.

Ren works her way through the crowded room, leaving the bar empty. The sun is setting but she grabs her sunflowered hat from the coat rack anyway, pulls it down over her ears as she steps out onto the empty porch and leans over the railing.

She looks up at the sky. She’s been living in Refuge for just over two years and it’s  _ colors  _ and  _ clouds  _ and  _ endless space _ never cease to amaze her.

The Davy Lamp is open and clean and lively but the world is falling down all around her. The sunset fades orange to pink, to reds and dusky purples and grays.

June used to wish on stars, when Ren first arrived in Refuge, when June was younger, when the world was a little easier. She stands out on the porch until the first star comes into view, and Ren wishes-- a prayer, a plea, a silent scream.

_ Please help this town-- my  _ family _ \-- to be okay. _

\---

One month later, the double, swinging saloon doors to the Davy Lamp burst open, and in rushes Paloma. “Ren! Have you seen Jack, June?”

“No, I haven’t,” she says, already getting worried. She abandons the dishes in the sink, runs out into the main room, drying her hands on her apron. “Why, what’s going on, did something happen?”

Paloma’s face is grim. “Have you been outside today?”

“No, I’ve been baking, it’s bread day. Why, what’s goin’ on? Is it-- are the Wars here?”

“No. Is worse.”

Ren grabs her sunhat and pulls on her gloves and rushes out of the front doors right after Paloma. She’s expecting legions of Warriors-- she’s expecting a dragon swooping in from overhead-- she’s expecting pillars of fire. But the main street is fine.

“Look up,” says Paloma.

Ren clutches the wide brim of her hat to keep it on her head, and does.

The sky isn’t there anymore.

Or, it is, but only faintly, as though there’s some shimmering curtain that’s been drawn between Ren and the surreal emptiness above her. It’s like when she needed glasses and didn’t have them and everything was sort of foggy-- except the buildings aren’t foggy, and the ground isn’t foggy, and Paloma isn’t foggy--

“What  _ is  _ it?!”

“Is a bubble,” says Paloma, grim. “Fire a spell at it.”

Ren pulls her wand from where it’s tucked into her braid and does, firing an old, rock-gouging spell up at the bubble.

The spell does  _ absolutely nothing _ .

“What does that mean?”

“It can’t be popped,” Paloma responds. “Nobody gets through, nothing gets through. Nobody in or out.”

“But... but isn’t this good?” asks Ren, grasping at straws. “The Wars won’t be able to get us, right?”

“No,” she says, with the finality only a divination witch can really muster. “But I think we are missing something even more important.”

“What are we missing?”

Paloma shrugs. “I am not sure yet. I don’t see it yet. Maybe someday I will know.”

Redmond, Priest of Istus and part-time stonefruit farmer, dressed in his farming clothes, comes barrelling down the road towards them, and stops, bent over forward panting. “Ren-- ‘loma. Have you seen-- Jack? Half my farms just got cut off and I can’t get through-- I got  _ people workin’  _ on the other side’a whatever barrier’s gone up--”

“Not all day,” says Ren, nervous. “Where’s June?”

Redmond shrugs, wiping at his red, sweaty face with a purple handkerchief.

Paloma stays silent, which is honestly concerning in and of itself.

Ren glances back up at the bubble that hangs overhead, fogging the sky.

And then it’s Sheriff Isaak, running towards them and the impromptu gathering of other citizens-- Brogden, who locks the bank doors nervously behind her-- Ash, their poncho flapping as they run up towards them-- Cassidy, coming out of the Davy Lamp where she grabbed lunch what with the diamond vein having dried up and no need to bring your own lunch for a day of mining.

“I have bad news,” says Isaak, and he’s a man of few words, strong and trustworthy, and he gets right down to it. “Jack and June are dead.”

Gasps.  _ Oh, gods above and below _ \--

“They sacrificed themselves to put the bubble around Refuge. In Jack’s last moments, he created the bubble, and he created-- he created Roswell, to take his place in keepin’ the town safe.”

Everybody looks down the road. Lumbering towards the group is a huge golem made of red clay, dressed in plate armor and wielding a halberd. Ren takes an automatic step back-- Paloma grabs her hand, a grounding sensation. 

Ren realizes that she’s trembling, very faintly. She wonders if that’s a bad thing, if-- if Jack and June are  _ dead  _ and--

And they died to put up that bubble and give Refuge a  _ golem  _ and--

“Hello, townsfolk!” chirps the tiny red bird sitting on the golem’s shoulder. “My name is Roswell!”

“Breath,” instructs Paloma.

Ren takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. It doesn’t make the situation any less horribly, horribly real.

“By their sacrifice,” says Isaak, “our home is made safe.”

It is noon. Behind Isaak, the clocktower chimes.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i hope you have a great day!!
> 
> please leave me a comment and kudos if you're liking the story!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A solemn year passes in Refuge after Jack and June's sacrifice. Somehow, life goes on. It goes on, and on, and on... and then the Hour begins.

“Palmoa told me you know somethin’ about stone carvin’,” says Isaak, his elbows heavy on the bar of the Davy Lamp. It’s been three days: the town is mourning. 

“Something ‘bout it, yeah,” she agrees, polishing a glass. As long as Ren just  _ keeps moving _ , she doesn’t have to think about what happened.

“I was thinkin’ ‘bout-- ‘bout a statue? With Jack, and June, and the Visitor that brought them here? In the middle of the square, by the clock tower.”

Ren swallows, hard, and polishes the glass even quicker. “And what d’you want me t’do? I can’t-- I can’t carve a statue.”

“I was thinkin’ you could help with carvin’ it, help design it,” says Isaak, after a long moment, pulling out a scroll of parchment from his satchel and sliding it across the counter to Ren. “Ash did some sketches o’the Visitor when they were here, ‘cause you weren’t here for that--”

“So you want me to, to draw it out?” asks Ren. “Then-- then carve it?”

“You were their best friend,” he says, voice heavy.

“Paloma--”

“Said for you to do it. I bet Ash--” the poncho-ed elf waves from their table, and takes a drink. Everybody is handling their grief in different ways. “Would help you draw it, if you tell them what to draw. They’re an artist.”

Ren looks down at the scroll that sits on the counter, the scroll with drawings of the Visitor. A statue, with Jack and June and the person who brought them to Refuge in the first place.

(It occurs to Ren that if a similar statue were carved for her-- her and the people who brought her to Refuge-- it would be her and Jack and June. And maybe Paloma too, ‘cause it was her prophecy.)

A teardrop hits the scroll, and Ren quickly wipes at her eyes. “Yeah,” she says, thickly. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“Thank you,” says Isaak.

\---

Two weeks later, just a couple days after Jack and June’s memorial service and the erection of the statue that Ren designed and Ash built, she closes the Davy Lamp at sunset. She puts on her hat and her gloves, and walks across her bubbled-in and rescued-but-at-too-high-a-cost little town, all the way up the bluff to the temple of Istus.

She’s never been in the two years she’s lived in Refuge, which isn’t anything against Istus and more of a thing against  _ bad experiences at temples _ , but-- 

But Ren’s desperate.

Her dreams are filled with distant screaming and bubbles and mineshafts and the Hole, dark and deep. Jack and June are trapped there and can’t get out. There’s no sign of the peace the golden-haired woman brings.

So she’s going to the temple of Istus to if they can... well. If they can tell her  _ what she’s supposed to do _ . To see if there’s a celestial remedy for  _ my world just fell down around me and I don’t know how to keep living _ .

Redmond has permanently left his temple for Stonefruit Farms, and Luca isn’t there when Ren arrives. It’s not a problem: the front door is unlocked, and she steps inside.

Ren doesn’t know what she was expecting, but it wasn’t a simple wooden building, with huge windows, and a half-completed tapestry hanging across the ceiling, and a few rows of pews. The alter at the front of the room is just a little wooden table, with a skein of yarn spread across it.

Refuge is a closed system, now. Ren doesn’t have any yarn to sacrifice to Istus and if she did, she wouldn’t. She’d need that yarn.

So she just kneels in front of the alter, slightly awkward, and constantly looking over her shoulder, just in case. Just in case.

“Um, hello. Istus?” she begins. “Sorry, I, I know I’m not one of your followers, but I’m just gonna... talk, if that’s okay. Um. So... I’m sure you’ve heard, Jack and June, they d-- they’re gone, and I don't know how to handle it and-- you, like,  _ make fate _ , right? Why’d you make them  _ die _ ?!”

“Ren,” says a very soft voice. Ren squeezes her eyes shut. “I don’t weave fate, I just mark it’s path. What are you doing?”

“I’m, um, bowing?” 

“Uh. You can stop.” Ren slowly sits up straight. “And you can open your eyes.”

After a very long moment, she obeys Istus. In front of her is a small woman, glowing with soft, celestial light. Her skin is dark and her hair is white, woven with a million billion colors, spreading through the room, all around Ren. Istus holds a scarf and a set of knitting needles, both ends of the scarf trailing around the room and eventually out of sight.

“Um,” says Ren.

Istus smiles, gentle. “What can I help you with, Ren?”

“I don’t understand,” she says, once she can talk again. “You weave fate, but-- but everything in Relonar, and, and everywhere in the Underdark--  _ Jack and June _ \--”

“I would give you a hug, but, uh, that might make you combust,” says Istus. “So I’m not gonna do that. But, Ren. That’s not what I  _ do _ .”

“Then what  _ do  _ you do?” Ren hiccups, swiping at her eyes. 

“I mark the choices people make,” says Istus, her hands constantly knitting, knitting, knitting, pulling new threads and new colors out of thin air. “I make sure that fate remains constant. But there’s always a choice, Ren. You chose to come here, didn’t you? You chose to grow?”

“Yeah, I-- how did you know that? That’s what, um, the woman said.”

“The woman?”

“I-- I dreamed about her. She had gold hair, and she-- she asked me if I wanted to choose. Asked me what I’d choose.”

Istus laughs like breaking glass. “Oh, you mean Eilistraee!”

“I-- who?”

“The daughter of Lolth,” says Istus, and she seems to understand why Ren’s breath catches, panicked. “But trust me, she’s nothing like her mother. She’s the goddess of in-betweens, of agency. Of exits and entrances. She leads people to make their own choices.”

“She showed me the stars,” says Ren, her voice thick.

Istus smiles, and there’s a tangible wash of warmth, like a hug. “She believed in choices. Fate does, too. You made your own choice, Ren. As for Jack and June, well... there is  _ always _ a choice. They made their choices. And so did the Visitor, and so did Isaak, and so did you.”

When Ren walks back to the Davy Lamp from Istus’s temple, she feels remarkably sad, but remarkably  _ relieved _ . A goddess  _ literally spoke to her _ and talked about choices, about in-betweens, about how the world constantly changes.

She looks up at the stars. Seen through the bubble, they are still resplendent, but no longer crystal clear. Just like so many things have been since Jack and June di-- since the bubble went up-- they are foggy.

\---

Refuge makes the sign as a reminder, and positions it where visitors to their city will see it, if they ever get visitors through the bubble. It’s a reminder to themselves, of course, of how much they’ve lost. It’s a note to visitors of how beloved this town is.

Ren, with her intricate rune-carving skills, unused but never forgotten, carves the words,  **BY THEIR SACRIFICE, OUR HOME IS MADE SAFE** . And if she cries onto the wood while she’s carving it, well, that’s just grief.

\---

“I am giving you prophecy,” says Paloma, three months and one week and four days after  Jack and June died the bubble went up. Ren is over at her hut in the woods for their weekly brunch, although the scones between them sit untouched. (Just as so many things in Refuge are, it is different without Jack and June.)

“I don’t want a prophecy, Paloma,” says Ren, pulling off her gloves. “I can’t pay--”

“Is no charge. Is for friend. Is for  _ family _ .”

Ren laughs, softly. Paloma--  _ family _ ?

“Yes, family,” says Paloma, and Ren laughs again. “Anyway. Prophecy. Eat a scone.”

Ren dutifully takes one of the scones-- lemon-rosemary, she thinks-- and one of the tiny, tear-shaped diamonds that glitter like the stars don’t anymore across Paloma’s ceiling drops.

The room goes dark, and a plume of not-dust emerges from the shattered crystal. Paloma’s eyes, when she opens them, glow.

In the dust, Ren sees a room, dense with dark and billowing smoke. Light glints off diamonds, spilled across the floor, and lying next to them is-- a body. A fallen sunhat. Blank eyes: it’s  _ her _ . And she is  _ unmistakeably dead _ .

“ **In the future, you will be betrayed by one you trust. They will choose to hurt you. In this moment, remember: nobody is good or evil. You ** ** _must remember _ ** **this, Ren. You must remember to ** ** _forgive_ ** .”

The lights come back. Paloma sits back down. Ren just  _ looks  _ at her. “I’m gonna  _ die _ ?!”

“Eventually? Yes. Pass me a scone, starving.”

Ren hands Paloma a scone without really seeing it. “But-- Paloma, I just saw myself  _ die _ .”

“Mhm, yes and no,” says the witch, nibbling on her scone. “Hmm. Too much lemon zest. Death is not the end. Not for you, not for Jack or June either.”

“It sure feels like it,” she mutters to her scone. She’s going to  _ die _ .

\---

But even if death feels like the end, it isn’t, and Ren doesn’t keel over the next day, or the next, or the next. Somehow or other without quite meaning to, Refuge falls back into day-to-day life. Sheriff (and Elder, now) Isaak patrols the streets and keeps an eye on the Stonefruit Farms ruffians, helped by Roswell, who’s really quite great. Ren comes up with a hundred new recipes to make out of stonefruit, because that’s the biggest crop she’s got access too now that the bubble’s shut off Refuge from the rest of the world. 

(It’s almost nice, in a twisted way, to not have to worry about the Warriors finding her now.)

Life goes on, and on, until almost exactly a year has passed since their sacrifice.

And then the temple of Istus collapses. It happens near dinner-time, too, when the Davy Lamp is bustling with all the regulars: well, all the regulars except Cassidy. It scares Ren, and nobody can find Luca, and Redmond refuses to dig through the rubble to look for his probably-dead brother.

The next day Cassidy is thrown into jail for blowing up the temple. She swears up and down that it wasn’t her, it wasn’t her, but she won’t say where she was when the temple collapsed.

And Luca is probably dead.

“No,” says Redmond, angry, when he’s asked if he wants to hold a funeral service even without a body. “No. If we weren’t in this stupid bubble none of this woulda happened.”

“It wasn’t the bubble’s fault, Red,” tries Brogden, but he ignores her.

“It was,” he mutters into his whiskey. “It... maybe if that goddamn bubble hadn't gone up he’d still be around.”

\---

Despite the loss of Luca-- which hurts, like an open wound, but Ren wasn’t close with him like she was with Jack and June-- the next day was a pretty standard day in Refuge: Ren wakes up before the sun, gets ready, lights the oven. Nobody’ll be by the Davy Lamp until maybe nine or ten, folks who wanna grab breakfast, but she hates bein’ unprepared. So she starts the bread, says a quick prayer to Eilistraee--  _ thank you _ ,  _ please keep me safe _ ,  _ please keep this town I love so well safe too _ \-- amen. She’s working on a new pastry filled with stonefruit jam, and it goes pretty well if she does say so herself.

By the time the door to the Davy Lamp swings open, Ren has magically sealed containers of fresh baked goods, the coffee’s started, and she’s taken down the chairs from off the tables, lit the oil lamps.

“Good morning, Ren,” says Ash, resident artist and fabulous poncho-wearer. With the bubble closing off the town and all, nobody’s really paying for any art. But they’ve got some big nest egg from a statue that sold well or somethin’, makin’ them a regular at the Davy Lamp.

“Mornin’, Ash,” says Ren, smiling at them as she steps over to the coffee pot, already pouring them a cup. “Wanna try a stonefruit pastry?”

“Might as well.”

She hands them the cup, pulls out one of the pastries with a crisp sheet of fantasy wax paper. In exchange, they hand her three diamonds, and she carefully slots them into the drawer of her cash register. It’s gettin’ pretty full-- diamonds don’t exactly stack well, and the Davy Lamp’s one of the few places in town that’s regularly busy. Maybe right before the lunch rush she’ll have time to run it to the bank.

Ash takes a seat at a far table, pulls out poker chips. Their goliath friend, with a name so long Ren can never remember it, joins them soon after, getting a coffee of their own. Then it’s Brogden, grabbing a pastry before her shift as bank teller. (Normally Cassidy would be in then, too, but she’s in jail for destroying the temple of Istus and inadvertently killing Luca.) The pianist, Savannah, arrives and takes her seat at the upright piano. Then it’s the remaining group of workers from Stonefruit Farm, the ones who weren’t trapped outside the bubble when it went up.

Most people are in and out, except for Ash and the goliath and the workers. They call themselves the Liberty Brigade and wear purple kerchiefs and rustle up trouble every now and then but hey, a customer’s a customer. 

The Liberty Brigade is day drinking, which, hey. Sure, she’ll sell them their booze, but Ren’s job is to keep up a fun, flirty atmosphere. When they start shouting the usual stuff-- blow up the bubble, take back their lives, yadda yadda-- Ren pulls out her wand.

“Hey, y’all!” she shouts. They look up at her. “Keep it down, kay?”

“Who’re  _ you _ to tell us what to do?” slurs one of them. He’s a real lightweight.

“It’s my bar. You need to not shout.”

“I’ll damn--  _ hic _ \-- I’ll shout when I wanna!” he draws a sword, wavering in the air. 

One of the other ruffians grabs her crossbow, too, pointing it around the room. They’re drunk, and Ren’s a much better fighter than they are, but  _ still _ . They are  _ ruining  _ the atmosphere.

She levels her wand at them, steady, and fires off a classic:  _ Jerk Remover _ . She’s only gotten better at casting it since she left the Underdark, and it blasts all three present members right out of their seats and out the swinging salon doors without even knocking over a chair.

Ash leads their friend in a polite round of applause, and Ren grins, bowing dramatically. The pianist-- Savannah, who used to mine and now spends her time trying out new jazz tunes in the Davy Lamp-- plays a riff that sounds like applause.

She tidies up a bit: they’ve hit the quiet before the lunch rush. Her wand is still smoking from the spell, and she polishes it absentmindedly on her apron.

She polishes some glasses, tries in vain to stuff the last few diamonds she got from Brogden into the already-stuffed cash register. After a while, she gives up on it as a lost cause, and pulls out the whole drawer entirely.

“Hey, Ash,” she says, glancing up at the clock on the wall-- it’s like, almost eleven-thirty. “D’you mind--”

Ren doesn’t get a chance to finish the sentence: the ground rumbles beneath her feet, and diamonds spill over the edges of the register drawer, clattering to the floor. Ren clutches the edge of the bar, panicked-- and then it stops just as soon as it started.

Ash looks over at her. “Just an earthquake, Ren.”

“I-- I’ve never felt one before,” she says, feeling sort of silly, bending over to pick up the diamonds that spilled, taking her time. Careful to check and double-check under the counters: she earned this money fair and square! Thank the gods for her magically-secured shelves of bottles and whiskey and canned preservatives. She’d hate to clean up  _ that  _ mess.

“I haven’t felt one in a long time, either,” they say, magnanimously, as Ren stands back up with the drawer in hand.

“Well. Um, I’m gonna run this to the bank ‘fore another earthquake hits-- d’you mind keepin’ an eye on things ‘til I’m back?”

“No problem,” says Ash, and she smiles at them, grateful, before ducking out from behind the bar and crossing the room. There’s a bit of awkward shuffling with the tray, but Ren manages to get her sunhat and gloves on without spilling any more diamonds. Thus equipped, she pushes out of the swinging salon doors, and into the desert sun.

Main Street doesn’t seem much affected by the earthquake, which is probably good. Even the clocktower-- which is, in Ren’s opinion, easily the most destructible of any of the buildings, isn’t damaged. It records the time clear as day-- eleven forty-two. 

Ren walks next door to the bank, pushes open the door with her back ‘cause her hands are full of her tray of diamonds.

“Hey, Brogden,” she says to the teller with a smile, stepping towards her.

And then the door slams open behind Ren.

She jumps-- some of the diamonds spilling out onto the floor,  _ again _ \-- and into the bank rushes five or six people, with purple handkerchiefs tied around their faces, weapons drawn.

The bank guards rush at them, but the wizard fireballs them--

Ren drops the tray of diamonds, sending tiny bits of light like stars scattering across the floor as she pulls out her own wand, blasting the wizard across the room with another  _ Jerk Remover _ \--

Brogden’s bank teller starts to transform, turning into a turret, growing a fantasy trebuchet--

One of the purple-kerchiefed  _ Liberty Brigade  _ makes it to the door to the vault and presses a huge, green, glowing cluster of-- of grapes-- but Ren’s heard about that before a million times from Cassidy and she knows it’s a bomb--

She points her wand at the bomber--

The ground rumbles beneath her--

And the world explodes.

In a rush of heat and light, Ren falls into darkness. Again, again, again, she welcomes it’s rush.

Ren doesn’t live long enough to hear the clock strike noon.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome, everybody, to the beginning of the Eleventh Hour!!! please drop a kudos and comment to let me know you're enjoying the story!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected visitor arrives in Refuge. An unexpected visitor arrives in Refuge. An unexpected visitor arrives in Refuge. An unexpected--

_ Jerk Remover _. 

Earthquake.

Diamonds to the bank--

The Liberty Brigade--

Fire, fire, fire, and then nothing at all.

\---

._ Jerk Remover _. 

Earthquake.

Diamonds to the bank--

The Liberty Brigade--

Fire, fire, fire, and then nothing at all.

\---

_ Jerk Remover _. 

Earthquake.

Diamonds to the bank--

The Liberty Brigade--

Fire, fire, fire, and then nothing at all.

\---

Ren doesn’t live long enough to hear the clock strike noon.

\---

The Liberty Brigade is day drinking, which, hey. Sure, she’ll sell them their booze, but Ren’s job is to keep up a fun, flirty atmosphere. When they start shouting the usual stuff-- blow up the bubble, take back their lives, yadda yadda-- Ren pulls out her wand.

“Hey, y’all!” she shouts. They look up at her. “Keep it down, kay?”

“Who’re _ you _ to tell us what to do?” slurs one of them. He’s a real lightweight.

“It’s my bar. You need to not shout.”

“I’ll damn-- _ hic _\-- I’ll shout when I wanna!” he draws a sword, wavering in the air. 

One of the other ruffians grabs her crossbow, too, pointing it around the room. They’re drunk, and Ren’s a much better fighter than they are, but _ still _ . They are _ ruining _the atmosphere.

She levels her wand at them, steady, and fires off a classic: _ Jerk Remover _. She’s only gotten better at casting it since she left the Underdark, and it blasts all three present members right out of their seats and out the swinging salon doors without even knocking over a chair.

Ash leads their friend in a polite round of applause, and Ren grins, bowing dramatically.

She tidies up a bit: they’ve hit the quiet before the lunch rush. Her wand is still smoking from the spell, and she polishes it absentmindedly on her apron.

But then the door swings open. And into the bar marches three people that Ren has never seen before in her life.

Savannah stops playing piano. Ash and their goliath friend pause in their poker game. Everybody is just staring: staring at these three, three _ strangers _ \-- how’d they get into _ Refuge _ ?! How’d they get past the _ bubble _ ?! What’re they _ doing _here?!

There’s a brawny human who seems right at home in the rustic atmosphere of the Davy Lamp--

There’s a real crunchy lookin’ dwarf holding a book-- a _ Bible _?-- that’s about as big as he is--

And--

And standing there, _ right there _, in what’s an arguably flirty-length mauve skirt--

In a huge, wide-brimmed and star-sparkling hat--

Umbrella slung jauntily over his arm--

He saunters over to Ren behind the bar like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Uh, listen,” he says, leaning against the bar with a winning smile. “I just wanna say, that was a _ heck _of a shot. I love magic, too.”

“Oh. My. _ God _,” says Ren, her eyes widening, her ears flicking straight up. “You--”

“It’s actually _ Taako _?”

“You’re _ Taako _ !” A huge grin crosses Ren’s face and she doesn’t bother to try and hide it-- it’s _ Taako _ , Taako from _ Sizzle it Up! _, Taako who helped inspire her to leave Barrivir and the Underdark and--

“Yeah, I’m Taako,” he says, clearly confused. 

“You’re _ the _ Taako!” Oh gods above and below, Taako is _ in her saloon _ , oh gods oh _ gods _\--

“Oh! Well, it’s always nice to meet a fan,” he says, twirling the umbrella around his arm.

The dwarf he came in with waddles over to the bar, just in time to laugh at his-- joke? Was it a joke? It was probably a joke?

“The magical chef!” says Ren, and then immediately hates herself for it-- of course he knows he’s a chef, dang it Ren-- “I saw your show in the Underdark!”

“The magical chef, that was me.”

“When you played in the Underdark! You-- oh my gods, you-- you like-- you’re my _ inspiration _!”

“That was the quiche lorraine, wasn’t it?” Taako muses. “That _ was _the quiche lorraine, I remember.”

“That was the quiche lorraine! I’ll never forget, that was the first quiche I ever cooked! You like, inspired me to get better at cooking, to experiment with what you could _ really do _ with food-- you helped me get out of the Underdark!” And sure it wasn’t _ really _ ‘cause of Taako that she had to run away from Barrivir, that was ‘cause of the Warriors, but he got her _ thinking _ about leaving and that was really half of it and-- “That’s-- I-- what are you _ doin _’ here?!”

“Well, I’m bringin’ the show to _ you _ ! I’m on tour, I guess, me and my friends here. We’re - I’m sort of doing, I guess you could call it, hm, some _ undercover _ work. We’re _ fixers _. The sheriff brought us in to sort of investigate how things are going here in the town. Sounds like there’s a little bit of trouble, we’re just trying to figure out the lay of the land.”

Taako’s human friend, the guy who’s basically oozing rusticity, walks over to them, too. “Madam, we did not catch your name,” he says, with a look at Taako that Ren can’t read. “What was your name?”

“Who-- I’m Ren. WHo are-- _ you _look familiar too.” Where would Ren have seen that face? He’s surely none of the few humans Ren’s met-- maybe he stayed at the Spired Inn?-- maybe his face was on the parchment Isaak gave her to design the Visitor in the statue based off of-- “Have we met?”

“Uh... nah.” He scrunches his face up, like he’s thinking hard. “Ren, have you ever had any, I dunno, carpentry work done?”

“What a ridiculous--” the bubble’s been up for almost a year, she does whatever she needs to herself-- “That’s kind of a ridiculous question, no.”

“I know,” says the man, and he laughs at himself. Ren likes his self-effacing nature: very rustic, very hospitable. “I just can’t think of where else we would’ve met.”

“What’s your-- what _ is _your name, though?”

“Magnus Burnsides!”

“Let’s go play shuffleboard,” says the dwarf, much louder than he needs to, “and let _ Taako _talk to the lady.”

“Ren, can I talk to Taako for a second?” asks Magnus Burnsides.

“Yeah, sure,” she says, still feeling slightly dazed, tucking her wand into her apron pocket. Magnus pulls Taako-- _ Taako _!-- aside, having a quiet conversation that for all Ren’s keen elven hearing she can’t quite make out.

Getting bored, she figures, the dwarf waddles back across the saloon to the middle of the room. “Who wants to arm wrestle my _ buddy _ ?! He can whip every ass in here!” he shouts, pointing at Magnus. Magnus gulps, makes a finger-cutting motion across his throat, but the dwarf either doesn’t see or doesn’t care. “I’ll pay _ big money _ to anyone that can out-arm-wrestle my pal _ Magnus _.”

He’s quickly flagged down by Ash and their goliath friend. Magnus makes eye contact with Ren, kinda nervous, as he follows the dwarf across the room.

Ren really wants to know how _ that’s _gonna end but--

Taako steps back over to her, leans against the bar, elbows on the counter. “When did you-- remind me. How _ long _ago was that show in the Underdark?”

“Do you remember me?” Ren asks, trying to force down the almost _ palpable _ excitement in her voice. “There weren’t that many-- it was the Underdark-- so there was a big crowd but not crazy big and-- you gave me a ticket! You stayed at the Inn I worked at!”

“Sure,” says Taako. “Right... but how _ long _, I mean, was that--”

“It was about-- not that long-- I don’t know, it was, a couple years ago? Three and a bit? It was right before I came to Refuge.”

“A couple years ago, _ right _. Yeah-- that sounds right.”

“Can I-- can I get you anythin’ to drink or anythin’, or-- oh, here!” Ren crouches down behind the counter, tugging open a drawer and pulling out the biggest key in there. She stands again, offers it to Taako. “Please, you guys are new in town, it seems like you could probably use a place to stay, so why don’t you use the room upstairs for a while? Check-in is at noon, um, so just wait around till then and just go ahead and drop off your stuff. It’s our best room, and god, I wish that we had something nicer. I’m sorry, I, I’m kind of geeking out right now.”

“Check in’s at _ noon _?”

“Yeah,” says Ren, really hoping that works for him. Imagine-- not just seeing Taako-- _ the Taako _ !-- in _ her Davy Lamp _ \-- but havin’ him _ stay there _?!

“Okay, well, why don’t you hold onto the key for me for a little bit? I’ll come back and get it.”

Ren takes the key as he hands it back to her, trying to swallow a sudden lump in her throat.

“So can I ask a weird question? And this is gonna sound like a _ complete _ outsider, but I think you get me enough to know that I’m sorta on the level with this.”

“Yeah.”

“What is _ with _ the _ bubble _, right?”

“Yeah, it’s - it popped up a little over a year ago and… I don’t know. I’m sort of ambivalent about it, like, obviously it keeps us safe from the dangers of outside and all that, but I feel a little cooped up from time to time.” And it’d be cool to have more fruit to work with than just, like, _ stone _ fruit, but this is _ Taako _, he doesn’t need to hear about her ingredient woes--

“Right, yeah,” says Taako, sympathetic.

“But things weren’t actually--”

He interrupts her. “How long has it been since you went outside the bubble?”

“I... nobody goes outside the bubble.”

“Right, okay, good,” he says, not seeming to mean any of those things at all. “Has anybody ever left?”

“Not that I know of. Um, yeah, no, I don’t think so. Yeah, it popped up a little over a year ago. Things weren’t so great in Refuge before it went up. We were, you know, it was a little quiet mining town for a while - well, it was a loud mining town for a while.”

“Sure, with the mining.”

“We did diamonds. We had a big motherlode underneath Refuge that dried up pretty quickly, and when it dried up, the town kinda dried up. I mean, I wasn’t here for that, that’s just what people say. And things weren’t going so great, money-wise and honestly, things have gotten a bit _ better _ since the bubble went up. We’re all, like, pretty nice to each other. It’s a pretty safe, chill place to live.”

“So it went up a year ago, but before that everybody just sort of came and went as they pleased, huh?”

“Yeah, sure. I mean, it was a town.”

“Sure, a town. I mean, don’t get _ uppity _ , you live in a _ bubble _.”

“...that is fair.”

“Like… I don’t think there’s any such _ thing _ as a stupid question! You live in a bubble!” 

“No, it’s an unconventional way to live, definitely,” she agrees, quieter.

It’s a good thing that Taako isn’t, like, apparently very _ good _ at reading conversations, ‘cause he just keeps talkin’. “So what’s - what do you think about Sheriff _ Isaak _, what’s the story there? He seems like a good dude to me.”

“Yeah, I mean, he’s pretty good. A lot of people preferred the last Elder, Jack--” her voice catches-- “But, you know, him and June… they, they died. And by their sacrifice our town is made safe, and all that. But I like Sheriff Isaak all right. He’s not-- I’m a bartender, I run a bar, and it’s important for me to keep kind of a fun, flirty atmosphere going in here, and kind of a sourpuss like him doesn’t exactly lend itself to that, but, yeah, you know. He does - he’s doing his best.”

“Yeah, you don’t want everybody to head into that _ other _ bar.”

“That’s a - okay,” Ren laughs, slightly, without expecting to. “No, that’s fair.” 

“I’m just like– you’re _ trying _ too hard, I think you could take it easy and then you’ll be fine. Jack and Jane, they’re the ones on the statue? “

“Jack and June, they’re Jack and June.” Ren would know-- she _ designed _ that statue in the form of two of her best friends who _ died _to keep Refuge safe.

“Jack and June are the ones on the statue?”

“Yeah. That’s them.”

Suddenly, there’s a roar of noise, from Magnus and the dwarf and Ash and the goliath. Ren and Taako both look across the room-- looks like Magnus lost and now the dwarf won’t pay up.

“Hey, hey, cut that crap out,” Ren calls over to them. Sure they came in with Taako but-- “Give them their diamonds and get out of here. If you’re gonna cause trouble - Taako, are these guys with you?”

“No. Give them their diamonds!”

Well that’s a lie if Ren’s ever heard one but--

“Okay. Sounds great!” Magnus shouts back, stands up, and turns tail and runs out of the Davy Lamp. Wow. 

\---

Suddenly, the ground rumbles beneath her feet, and diamonds spill over the edges of the register drawer, clattering to the floor. Ren clutches the edge of the bar, panicked-- and then it stops just as soon as it started.

Taako grabs the bar as the ground shakes, too, clutching onto his oversized wizard’s hat with his other hand. “I-- does that, that earthquake thing _ happen _a lot?”

“No,” she says, still sort of shaken. “That was weird.”

Ren bends over, scooping up some of the fallen diamonds-- “No, I don’t-- I’m sorry, I gotta deal with this, so-- is there anything else I can help you figure out?”

“_ Real _ quick, the bubble we talked about. Do you have any idea what’s making it? Did somebody cast a spell at some point? Does it seem to emanate from anywhere, is there any place you’re not allowed to go? Any ideas? “

“I mean, I don’t know, it’s… I don’t know.” That was many questions all at once and it’s not like Ren’s a magical theory expert. It’s not like there’s _ runes _for her to interpret on the inside of the bubble. “I mean, what caused it was Jack and June, their sacrifice, making-”

“Wait, so what was the sacrifice?”

“Well… I don’t like to talk about it, it’s pretty sad, I liked them both a lot. But June liked to play in the mines, and she got lost, and Jack went to find her, and then they fell– and died, and right when that happened, that’s when the bubble popped up. They were in the quarry, I mean I guess if we’re trying to figure out where it originates, that would be it, I guess?”

“Weren’t there three figures in the statue?” asked Taako.

“Well, yeah,” says Ren. “There was the visitor that brought them to Refuge.”

“So wait, the visitor brought them to Refuge and then Jack was made the _ elder _?”

“Yeah. I mean, all that was before I got here, but-- he was really great. He was a really great guy. You know who you should talk to-- you should talk to Paloma.” It only feels right to send Taako to the fourth member of their little group, their little family, Jack-June-Paloma-_ Ren _.

“Who’s Paloma?”

“She’s great. She lives out in the woods. A lot of people don’t love that she’s just kinda out there doing her own thing, but she’s really good at helping people kinda figure out - get their bearings, so to speak. She’s a witch.”

“She’s a _ witch _, okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, actually, _ can _ I have that key? We’ll come back a little later and get _ all _our stuff checked in.”

“Oh. Sure!” Ren ducks back behind the counter, grabbing the key back out and handing it to Taako, again. “Yeah, here you go!”

Across the room, Ash and their goliath friend are still trying to get the dwarf to pay up. Just when it looks like it’s gonna get physical-- Ren reaches for her wand-- the dwarf straight up runs out of the room. _ Wow _.

“Man, these guys, _ huh _?” says Taako, amused. “You know what? I’ll go catch him.” And he runs out the door.

Holy _ crap _. What. Just. Happened?!

“Ash, I’m gonna go drop these diamonds off at the bank,” says Ren, distracted, tugging out the overflowing drawer from the cash register. “You mind keepin’ an eye on things?”

“No problem,” says Ash. “And if you see that dwarf, give him a good use of Jerk Remover, would you?”

There’s a bit of an awkward shuffle at the door as Ren puts on her sunhat and her gloves, and she nods absently at Ash, picking up the tray as Savannah starts to somewhat nervously play piano again. She pushes out of the swinging salon doors, and into the desert sun.

Main Street doesn’t seem much affected by the earthquake, which is probably good. Even the clocktower-- which is, in Ren’s opinion, easily the most destructible of any of the buildings, isn’t damaged. It records the time clear as day-- eleven forty-two. 

Ren walks next door to the bank, pushes open the door with her back ‘cause her hands are full of her tray of diamonds.

“Hey, Brogden,” she says to the teller with a smile, stepping towards her.

And then the door slams open behind Ren.

She jumps-- some of the diamonds spilling out onto the floor, _ again _\-- and into the bank rushes five or six people, with purple handkerchiefs tied around their faces, weapons drawn.

The bank guards rush at them, but the wizard fireballs them--

Ren drops the tray of diamonds, sending tiny bits of light like stars scattering across the floor as she pulls out her own wand, blasting the wizard across the room with another _ Jerk Remover _\--

Brogden’s bank teller starts to transform, turning into a turret, growing a fantasy trebuchet--

One of the purple-kerchiefed _ Liberty Brigade _makes it to the door to the vault and presses a huge, green, glowing cluster of-- of grapes-- but Ren’s heard about that before a million times from Cassidy and she knows it’s a bomb--

She points her wand at the bomber--

The ground rumbles beneath her--

And the world explodes.

In a rush of heat and light, Ren falls into darkness. Again, again, again, she welcomes it’s rush.

Ren doesn’t live long enough to hear the clock strike noon.

\---

_ Jerk Remover _. 

Earthquake.

Diamonds to the bank--

The Liberty Brigade--

Fire, fire, fire, and then nothing at all.

\---

The Liberty Brigade is day drinking, which, hey. Sure, she’ll sell them their booze, but Ren’s job is to keep up a fun, flirty atmosphere. When they start shouting the usual stuff-- blow up the bubble, take back their lives, yadda yadda-- Ren pulls out her wand.

“Hey, y’all!” she shouts. They look up at her. “Keep it down, kay?”

“Who’re _ you _ to tell us what to do?” slurs one of them. He’s a real lightweight.

“It’s my bar. You need to not shout.”

They glare at her, and she glares right back, and apparently that’s enough for them to keep their heads and not go attackin’ her in her own bar.

The double saloon doors swing open with a crash, and into the Davy Lamp saunters an elven man. He wears a filtry mauve skirt, a ridiculously oversized wizard’s hat, a frilly umbrella on his arm.

“Uh, hello madam--

“Oh my _ god _ ,” says Ren. “You’re _ Taako _!”

“I _ am _! I’m looking for, uh--

“I’m your _biggest_ _fan_! I saw you play in the Underdark!”

“I, I-- Wait a minute, are you, are you _ Ren _?”

“You remember me!”

“Little _ Ren _ ?” Taako’s face breaks into a wide, show-ready smile. “I can’t _ believe _ it, I remember you right there in one of the rows! In one of the seats, right?” 

“Yeah, Row D!”

“Row _ D! _ That’s right!”

“Seat--”

“Seat--”

“Seveeen–”

“Seeveen–“

“Teeen!”

“Teen! I remember that _ very _ well, I love playing the Underdark! How _ are _ you?”

“I, I’m doing okay--” Ren lets herself get carried away, talking about the rowdy boys of the Liberation Brigade-- and Taako has _ business plans _ to discuss with her-- _ oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods _ \-- Ren performs what she thinks is a pretty dang great Jerk Remover but Taako’s impressed by her magic and-- and he’s not here to teach cooking, he’s here to teach _ magic _ ! And sure he insults her Jerk Remover and corrects her technique in the same sentence but that’s just how he acted when he gave her that ticket to _ Sizzle it Up _! 

Taako is going to _ teach Ren magic _ and it only costs her _ two diamonds _ ! That ain’t very much at _ all _ ! Help Yourself, Cast Yourself, Into Magic Legend: HYCYIML: is a really bad acronym but still it’s _ Taako _! She writes it down in her day calendar (a bar-warming gift from Brogden) and everything!

This is the best day of Ren’s _ life _. 

Taako leaves Ren in some strange mix of shock and awe, so much so that the earthquake hardly fazes her at all. She leaves Ash keeping an eye on the Davy Lamp, carries the tray of diamonds over to the bank.

Main Street doesn’t seem much affected by the earthquake, which is probably good. Even the clocktower-- which is, in Ren’s opinion, easily the most destructible of any of the buildings, isn’t damaged. It records the time clear as day-- eleven forty-two. 

Ren walks next door to the bank, pushes open the door with her back ‘cause her hands are full of her tray of diamonds.

“Hey, Brogden,” she says to the teller with a smile, stepping towards her.

And then the door slams open behind Ren.

She jumps-- some of the diamonds spilling out onto the floor, _ again _\-- and into the bank rushes five or six people, with purple handkerchiefs tied around their faces, weapons drawn.

The bank guards rush at them, but the wizard fireballs them--

Ren drops the tray of diamonds, sending tiny bits of light like stars scattering across the floor as she pulls out her own wand, blasting the wizard across the room with another _ Jerk Remover _\--

Brogden’s bank teller starts to transform, turning into a turret, growing a fantasy trebuchet--

One of the purple-kerchiefed _ Liberty Brigade _makes it to the door to the vault and presses a huge, green, glowing cluster of-- of grapes-- but Ren’s heard about that before a million times from Cassidy and she knows it’s a bomb--

She points her wand at the bomber--

The ground rumbles beneath her--

And the world explodes.

In a rush of heat and light, Ren falls into darkness. Again, again, again, she welcomes it’s rush.

Ren doesn’t live long enough to hear the clock strike noon.

\---

_ Jerk Remover _.

Earthquake.

Main Street doesn’t seem much affected by the quake, which is probably good. Even the clocktower-- which is, in Ren’s opinion, easily the most destructible of any of the buildings, isn’t damaged. It records the time clear as day-- eleven forty-two. 

Ren walks next door to the bank, pushes open the door with her back ‘cause her hands are full of her tray of diamonds.

Immediately past her run two guards, shouting at each other, and she steps into the room, confused.

There are two people, a human and a dwarf, that she’s never seen before in her life-- although the human guy looks kinda _ familiar _ , that’s _ weird _\-- their weapons and drawn and they’re looking at her in-- horror? Fear? 

Ren drops her drawer full of diamonds, and they go scattering across the floor, looking around the room as she reaches for her wand.

And then, hiding under a table, she sees-- a mauve skirt, a huge wizard’s hat, an umbrella-- an elf who inspired her to leave the Underdark--

“Oh my god, Taako! What’re you _ doing _here?!” If he’s here then the weapons out are probably just a misunderstanding anyway and--

His voice is more serious than she can remember it being. “Ren.” _ He knows her _ ** _name_ **! “Do you trust me?”

“I mean-- I trust that you’re an excellent chef! Holy _ crap _!” She rushes through the fallen diamonds, kneeling down next to where he’s lying under a table. “Can I-- this looks like a bad time for it but like, can I get an autograph or somethin’?”

“Absolutely. Meet me outside right now.”

From out the open door, Ren hears somebody shout, “Roswell! Roswell! Roswell, the bank!”

Ren doesn’t know what’s going on but whatever it is isn’t good, _ Taako _ ’s mixed up in it and what’s he even _ doing _here--

“Hey listen, Ren,” says Taako, pained, “I’m wicked sorry about this.”

And he points his wand directly at her. There’s a rush of magic-- _ he’s casting a spell on her oh gods _\-- and she manages to shake it off, but pushes herself backwards, away from Taako, eyes wide--

“I was trying to _ save _you,” he calls after her, “shit’s about to break bad here--”

Ren scuttles backwards and pushes herself to her feet, feels the tears slip down her cheeks, her sunhat fall off her head: runs out of the bank. She rushes right back to the Davy Lamp-- ears burning, protesting her run but she has to _ go _\--

She is trembling all over when she steps through the doorway.

“Ren?” asks Ash, standing, alarmed. “Ren, what happened? Are you okay?”

She manages to shake her head no-- she can barely _ breathe _ , why can’t she _ breathe _\--

Ash helps her to a chair, promises to be back soon with Redmond to look at her ears, ‘cause even if he isn’t a cleric of Istus anymore he’s still the closest thing they’ve got to a doctor now that Luca’s gone and--

Savannah’s stopped playing the piano, has gotten Ren a drink of water only her hands are shaking too much to hold it properly and the water’s sloshing everywhere and onto her gloves and--

The ground starts to rumble again, like the earthquake but a million times louder and Ren’s teeth are clattering together and the glass shatters on the table--

And then the world explodes.

In a rush of heat and light, Ren falls into darkness. Again, again, again, she welcomes it’s rush.

Somewhere in the distance, she can hear the clocktower striking noon. One, two, three--

Ren doesn’t live long enough to hear the twelfth strike.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter! thanks so much for sticking with me through this whole fic! drop a comment and kudos to let me know what you think :D


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hour ends. Refuge remembers their seven years in the bubble: Refuge remembers the Relic Wars, the Seven Birds, a thousand stories that they never lived but were always theirs. The Hunger descends, and the world fights back.

_ Jerk Remover _ .

Then an earthquake, though it’s like, real small, almost like whatever made it changed its  _ mind _ \--

And then the ground  _ is  _ vibrating, and Ren and Ash and Savannah and everybody else in the Davy Lamp is holding on tight to the bar and their tables as the glasses rattle, but nothing falls down and then the shaking subsides--

“What was  _ that _ ?” Ren asks.

And then like a rush of static-- a rush of light-- Ren  _ remembers _ . They  _ all  _ do.

Thousands of cycles-- _jerk_ _remover_ earthquake diamonds to the bank the Liberty Brigade fire fire fire _nothing at all_\--

Thousands of cycles, remembered. Thousands of cycles of destruction and death.

And then-- 

Then.

Twelve cycles, twelve loops.

The dwarf and the human and the elf, and, and  _ Taako _ \--

Taako, who met Ren, Taako from  _ Sizzle it Up! _ , Taako who cast some spell on Ren to try and save her from the death in that burning bank that she now remembers--

As though summoned there by Istus herself, the citizens of Refuge-- Ren and Paloma, Cassidy and Savannah and Isaak and June--  _ June! June! June! _ \-- Roswell as a bird and Ash and Brogden and the Liberty Brigade and Luca--  _ Luca! Luca back alive! Luca and June alive again! _ \-- the citizens of Refuge cluster in the street, walk down to the sign that Ren carved.

**BY THEIR SACRIFICE, OUR HOME IS MADE SAFE.**

Outside the bubble are four figures: Taako. Magnus Burnsides. Their dwarf friend, who Redmond and Luca name Merle Highchurch. And another guy, with really poppin’ eyeliner and aviator glasses. Nobody knows who he is. Nobody knows why there’s a cannon next to them, either.

And then Istus’s face appears, godly and shimmering, as though projected onto the inside of the bubble.

“You’ve all done so well,” she says, and it feels like a benediction. “Through events beyond your control, though, you’ve gotten out of step-- in time, that is-- with the rest of the world. In about seven years, once you’re caught up again, the bubble will fall. Oh, and Luca?”

Luca, devoted cleric of Istus, looks absolutely starstruck.

Istus just smiles at him, warmly. “I really am sorry about dropping the temple on you. That wasn’t on Cassidy-- that’s my bad. I attempted to stop the time loops, and the magic creating them interfered with my own. I’m sorry you were hurt by it.”

Luca just nods. Redmond-- who had to live the day after his brother’s death thousands and thousands of times-- hugs him, tight.

“June,” says Istus. Everybody looks at June, who supposedly died, but... didn’t? “You were trapped through no fault of you own. You did well.”

“Thank you,” says June, softly, her eight-year old eyes looking so, so much older than they should.

Istus fades from the bubble. June steps backwards, turns, and runs.

This time it is her who grabs Ren in a hug.

And then Paloma joins, then Cassidy, then Brogden and Luca and Redmond and-- 

The whole town clusters together, crying, laughing, rejoicing. 

Seven years pass.

\---

June, absent a father, moves into the Davy Lamp with Ren. Ren tells her to go to school, that she doesn’t need to work, that all she needs to do is to  _ be _ but June just rolls her eyes and starts doing the dishes. Ren refuses to let her take shifts at the bar until she’s fifteen and her Jerk Remover spell is almost as polished as Ren’s is.

Ren gives her the scroll of designs for the statue of her and her daddy and the Visitor. It belongs to her more than it ever did to Ren.

The kids of Refuge, headed by Ash, form another statue, this one right by the bubble, opposite of Magnus and Merle and Taako and The-Other-Guy. (Brogden’s taking bets on him being their boss, and Ren isn’t a betting gal but she bet  _ no  _ ‘cause she can’t picture Taako willingly taking orders from  _ anyone _ .)

Anyway, the kids and Ash make a new statue mimicking them, changing it every time they move: the world outside Refuge reduced to slow motion as Istus’s promised seven years go by.

Roswell returns as a bird, but still unquestionably the sherriff after Isaak’s resignation and taking up of simpler work out on the Stonefruit Farms.

Ren makes a new sign to replace the old one: just one word, one message to the outside world:  **THANKS!**

There are midsummer harvest festivals and Candlenights celebrations. There are weddings, and a handful of funerals. Cassidy tries out a new hairstyle (frosted tips!) and has long conversations with Ren over hard cider about changing the government of Refuge from just one Elder to an elected Mayor. She’s got lots of good ideas ‘bout how to change the town, even if a lot of them involve explosives.

She’s elected mayor four years into their stay in the bubble, skips over the Elder’s Mansion and turns it into a hospital and welfare center. Cassidy and Brogden gave Ren a sunhat when she first arrived in Refuge-- now Ren and Brogden give Cassidy a fancy silk tophat. She cries when they give it to her, won’t take it off for anything.

\---

Ren’s been keeping careful count of the days: when the bubble is due to pop, the town of Refuge gathers just beneath the “ **THANKS!** ” sign. Merle, Magnus, Taako, and The-Other-Guy have moved only slightly over the past seven years, and Ren is... well, she’s not entirely sure how she feels.

She’d thought it was stagnant, being trapped in the bubble that first year before Taako arrived. She’d hated that: she’d been too still for far, far too long in the Underdark, far too many times.

But the past seven years, it hit her: she doesn’t  _ have  _ to be. She can stay in place-- Refuge, her home, her  _ family _ \-- but she doesn’t have to stay the same person. Just like Eilistraee asked her so long ago--  _ how far will you go _ ? 

Ren isn’t going anywhere. But she is growing, all the time. Up and up.

June runs up to her side. She’s fifteen, now, and almost a head taller than Ren. Jack was tall, and she’s following in his footsteps. 

“I’m gonna run back to the Davy Lamp,” she says, quiet under the murmuring of the excited crowd.

“Are you sure, Junebug?” asks Ren. June can’t speak about what happened to her-- she’s tried, and all anybody can hear is static and Paloma says to just let it be-- but she’s old for her age. And that sometimes makes gettin’ her to relax and enjoy things, well, hard. “I can go cover the front if you’re worried about it--”

June shakes her head, adjusting the skirt of her yellow dress. She’s long since grown out of the dress she came out of the mines in but she still loves the color. “I jus’ feel like I need to be there.”

Ren knows better than to try and talk June out of a feeling. “Alright, then. Come get me if you need anythin’, alright?”

“I will,” she promises, hugging Ren quickly, and then disappearing into the crowd. Ren watches her for as long as she can, headed back to the Davy Lamp.

“She grew up so fast,” notes Paloma. “Kids these days.”

Ren laughs. “Compared to you I’m still a kid, too.”

The witch shrugs, handing Ren the huge basket of baked goods she’s holding to dig around in her apron pocket. “Hold.”

“Are you ready to get out in the world again?” asks Ren.

Paloma pulls something-- a crystalline prophecy, maybe?-- out of her pocket, palming it, and taking the basket back. “Get out in world? No. Absolutely not.”

Ren laughs.

“See the stars? Absolutely yes.”

“Absolutely,” Ren agrees, sincere. 

The crowd falls silent on some unspoken cue. And, without a sound, the bubble pops.

Magnus, Merle, and Taako all rush into the crowd. The-Other-One is quickly mobbed by Ash, Brogden, and the Liberation Brigade, all excitedly talking over each other about their bets on who he really is.

Paloma is talking to Magnus and Taako--

Cassidy is talking to Merle--

Ren’s not sure why June’s at the Davy Lamp, but she gets the feeling she’s not gonna want to miss the chance to greet everybody. Ren winds her way out of the crowd and back to the saloon, stepping through the doors.

June is standing by the bar, and looks up with a smile when she comes in. “I figured people’d wanna come here to celebrate,” she says, and sure enough, the tables have been newly cleaned and the chairs have been arranged, ready for a crowd.

“That’s a good thought,” says Ren, ducking behind the bar and pulling on her apron. “You can go join the crowd, if you want. I can handle it.”

“Thanks, Ren,” says June, with a small smile. “I’ll just bring out the pastries real quick.”

“Perfect.”

June disappears into the kitchen, and across the room, the double saloon doors fly open. And into the Davy Lamp walks one Magnus Burnsides.

“Hi, Ren!” he says, trotting across the room, exuberant. “How’s your years been?!”

“Pretty dang good,” she says, with a smile. “Yours?”

“Very short! Hey, have you seen Junebug?”

“Yeah, she’s just in the back--”

The door to the kitchen swings open, and there’s June, holding a tray of pastries that she hands to Ren, ducking out from behind the bar to hug Magnus.

“Thank you,” says June, very quietly. Ren gets the feeling she isn’t really supposed to be watching this-- sets the pastries in their place, grabs some glasses that don’t  _ really  _ need polishing and starts polishing them anyway.

“Hold-- hold on one second,” says June. She runs across the room, up the stairs, and through the door on her landing that leads to her room.

Magnus looks  _ undeniably  _ awkward. “Um?”

Ren can’t help it: she laughs. “Have a pastry.”

He takes one, pops it whole into his mouth. “Thith ith  _ great _ !”

June trots back down the stairs, and she’s holding a tube designed for a scroll of paper to be secured inside of it. “I think, um, I think you should have this.” She hands it to Magnus. “I gotta get back to work, but-- it’s really good to see you.”

“It was good to see you too, Junebug,” says Magnus, achingly sincere, looking down at the scroll that seems tiny in his hands. “Should I... open it?”

June just looks up at him. “Good luck!” And she runs back into the kitchen.

Magnus makes eye contact with Ren. She shrugs. He shrugs.

And then the doors open again, only this time it’s Taako who enters the Davy Lamp. Magnus takes this chance to leave again, while Taako saunters-- his favorite way of walking, apparently, up to the bar.

This is the chance for a  _ real good goof _ .

“Oh my god,  _ Taako _ !” she says, with a shit-eating grin. “I’m just kidding, I remember you coming up and seeing me a couple times. How about that magic lesson, boss?”

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” says Taako, unfurling a large piece of paper with a dramatic flourish. He reads, “Top of her class, this scroll bestows upon you, Ren, the high honour of being the first and  _ only _ graduate of  _ Taako’s Amazing School of Magic _ .”

Ren clasps her hands over her mouth, eyes widening as Taako spreads the diploma down on the bar counter between them. “Aren’t I-- aren’t I supposed to take lessons and stuff? Aren’t I supposed to like, learn from you first, before...?”

“Ren?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been watching the whole time,” says Taako, softly.

Ren looks down at the diploma, then back up at Taako. “I’ll-- I’ll never forget this.” And she ducks under the counter, grabbing him in a hug.

A couple of seconds later, he pulls away. “And here’s one other thing.” He pulls out a folding fan, hands it to Ren. “I don’t  _ need  _ this, because I know how to cast the spell.  _ And  _ it’s heavy.”

Ren laughs, taking the fan from him. “Thank you,” she says, and she’s laughing but it’s as sincere as anything she’s ever said before. “I’ll use it every day!”

“In my head I thought this is an incredibly special treasure to me- I should’ve flipped those, so I’m sorry. Let me try again: this is an incredible treasure, and I want you to have it.”

Ren laughs again. “Thank you, thank you, Taako. I’ll  _ never _ forget this.” A beat. “Will I ever see you again?”

“Ren…” he sighs. “It’s hard to say. So here’s hoping.”

\---

Life in Refuge goes back to normal once Magnus, Merle, Taako, and The-Other-Guy (whose name is apparently Avi but, eh, Ren called him The-Other-Guy for seven years and doesn’t see a good reason to stop now) leave. Well, it’s as normal as life could ever be for a desert mining town/family.

The diamond mines are still dry, but that’s alright. Everybody works together to expand Stonefruit Farms into the area it used to take up before the bubble rose. The purple worms-- with Roswell’s help translating purple-worm to Common-- even help dig the irrigation trenches.

Ren still talks to Istus, sometimes. She’s not big into organized religion-- not after her childhood, not after Lolth-- but Istus isn’t a very organized goddess. Ren’s even prayed to Eilistraee a time or two:  _ thank you for leading me out and making me wonder about how much more I could be thank you for this family I have now and thank you for every choice I will get to make _ .

Summer dawns, as all things do.

And then, one hot day, the world falls apart.

The colors vanish, a world gone grayscale. 

In the distance, there are sounds of battle, but no enemies to be seen.

And then a blue light, flashing through their minds.

A story like none Ren has ever heard before. Seven birds on a silver ship, flying for a hundred years, pursued by the Hunger, chasing the light.

Among those birds, three men Ren knows.

Magnus Burnsides, the Protector.

Merle Highchurch, the Peacemaker.

And  _ Taako _ , one half of the Twins.

Ren looks up.

Black clouds fill the sky. Miles away on the horizon, thick columns like inky black tar plunge to the earth. The earth shakes: a huge chasm opens just outside of Refuge, plunging down, down, down.

All of Paloma’s crystals shatter, except for one.

Mayor Cassidy, at Paloma’s request, gathers the town of Refuge in the Davy Lamp.

“Now, I dunno just what’s happenin’ to this world, but it’s sure as heck  _ our  _ world. I’m gonna drive the battlewagon on over and see if I can help out, that’s sure as shit! Anybody with me?!”

“Where exactly are we going?” asks Roswell, the bird.

“To the moon,” says Paloma, which is about as vague as usual. “They will need us there. Old friends, and new ones. I have the feeling we will be seeing Merle again, today, too.”

“I’m coming,” says Ren, pulling on her sunhat. This is  _ her  _ world.

“And me,” says Brogden, holstering her shoulder-turret.

“Might as well,” says Ash, with a ponchoed shrug, twirling their wand between their fingers.

“I’ll drive,” offers Redmond.

“I’ll defend from shotgun!” says Luca.

“I’m comin’, too,” says June, and she’s holding the magic wand Ren gave her and taught her  _ Jerk Remover _ , and there’s something about the set of her jaw that tells Ren that no amount of cajoling will convince June to stay at home. She hasn’t been a child for a long, long time now. And this world belongs to them all: this is a fight for them all.

“Let’s go, then,” urges Roswell.

Then it’s a flurry of motion-- Luca and Redmond, rushing out to get the battlewagon--

Ren, hurriedly grabbing her old leather armor and teaching June how to put it on--

Paloma, sneaking a scone from the display case--

Ash, cracking their knuckles--

And Mayor Cassidy, waving a hand over her shoulder, beckoning them all to follow her.

They do.

Out of the Davy Lamp, into the battlewagon, away from Refuge. Off to fight for the world and the home they love so well.

\---

They roar down a dirt road, sitting quietly. Nobody has much to say: the apocalypse is here, what is there to  _ say _ ?

Suddenly, Paloma shouts, “STOP!”

The wagon screeches to a halt. Ren looks out the window-- they’re nowhere near those huge columns of tar, not yet. But Paloma jumps to her feet, surprisingly spry, and throws open the door.

Lying face-down in the dirt is a crunchy, crunchy dwarf.

Cassidy laughs, holding onto her top hat with one hand as she jumps out of the wagon, offering Merle Highchurch a hand up. “Hop aboard, lil’ gerblin!”

Merle rolls over in the dirt, absentmindedly tucking a flower behind his ear. Ren’s not entirely sure where he  _ got  _ said flower. “You’re not gonna hit me with a  _ shovel _ , are ya?”

Cassidy chuckles. “I put that chapter o’ my life behind me. I’m the mayor now!”

Merle laughs-- he seems  _ lighter _ , now, than he was when Ren first met him, like some weight has been lifted from his back-- and takes Cassidy’s outstretched hand. “Well, Sister Sue, let’s get rollin’!”

She tugs Merle into the battlewagon. Paloma pulls the door shut. The engine revs.

“What the heck ‘er ya doin’ lyin’ on a dirt road in the middle o’ the apocalypse?!” asks Cassidy. Ren thinks that’s an excellent question: leans forward, elbows on her knees.

In true Merle fashion, though, he just says, “... I have back issues.” Ren looks at Paloma, who’s visibly trying not to laugh. “No, I just uh, I don’t know, I, you know, hook, hooked back up with my god, and you know, it was, ehh, it was kinda tiring. But um, we can talk about this later. Are you here to help us save the world?”

“Well uh, Paloma brought us here actually,” says June. “She said she had a feeling that she’d be seeing you today. She has something that she wanted you to see.”

Paloma pulls Merle onto one of the cushions on the ground, ignoring his complains about his knees.

“Merle, I wanted you to see something. This--” she holds the last crystal up in the air and “This is my last prophecy, Merle. All the other prophecies, they showed me the end of the world. But _this_ _one_\--” she takes Merle’s hand, folding the crystal into his palm-- “This one hasn’t shown me anything. Maybe it just doesn’t work, but maybe...maybe there’s another way that all this can end. Can you keep it safe for me please? 

“You got it,” says Merle, with a nod. He is more serious now than Ren ever saw him in Refuge-- this, she thinks, is something that Merle the Peacemaker would have done. “Consider it done.”

“We heard about your story, Merle, all of us,” chirps Roswell. “It’s  _ unbelievable _ ! We owe you such a huge debt for what you did in Refuge, but, but we have to ask more of you now. I know you can stop this Merle. I don’t know  _ how _ but—”

The battlewagon screeches to a halt, sending everybody tumbling sideways like pinwheels. Cassidy laughs as Ren is thrown against her, helping her sit upright again.

“Holy shit!” shouts Luca, from the driver’s seat.

Cassidy leaps to her feet, throwing open the door. Ren’s a split second behind her, jumping out of the battlewagon, her wand drawn in one hand and the other firmly planted on top her her hat, making sure it stays on her head. 

“Holy shit,” says Cassidy.

Ren looks up in front of them. Looming over the road, just a couple hundred yards away, is a huge behemoth of a being, made of that black Hunger-tar. One of the Judges from the Story.

Ren doesn’t usually swear, but this deserves one. “Holy  _ shit _ .”

The Judge takes a step towards them.

“Well, that’s a big boy,” chirps Roswell, flittering out of the wagon as everybody else piles out, ready to fight for their world. “And I may not be an elemental anymore, but I can still talk to the earth. And we’ve got  _ friends  _ down there.”

Ren realizes what’s happening a split second before it happens--

The earth begins to tremble like the earthquakes that destroyed Refuge thousands of times during that fateful eleventh hour. But this earthquake-- shaking trees in the distance-- just rumbles right past them, bursting out of the ground in the form of the giant purple worm, wrapping itself around the towering Judge and sending both of them crashing to the ground with a resounding thud that makes Ren’s teeth chatter.

“Back in wagon!” shouts Paloma, and almost unthinkingly, they obey.

Merle whips out a small broom, and points at the moon that hangs low in the sky almost directly above them. “I gotta go catch the fam. See ya! Wouldn’t want ta be ya!” And he jumps on board that broom, yells, “Hang ten!” and soars off into the sky.

Ren watches him go. “Wow.”

“Wow indeed,” says Paloma. “Wagon time. Now.”

Ren laughs, and the two women pile back into the wagon. Cassidy closes the door; Redmond leans back from his seat. “Where’re we headed, Paloma?”

“Neverwinter,” she says, and he nods.

The engine revs, and they drive, making a careful arc around where the purple worm and the Judge still wrestle. Ren watches out the window as they drive towards the thickest cluster of huge Hunger-columns: she’s heard stories about Neverwinter, but she’s never been. Now she will fight to save a city that is not hers, with a family that  _ is _ .

And the people she fights with will  _ always  _ be more important than the land they fight for.

\---

And then there is Lup, so like Taako but so different, rallying the troops of Neverwinter--

And then there is a battlefield on the horizon--

Across the sky swoops a silver ship so familiar, the Starblaster-- flying  _ into _ , not away from, the Hunger--

A green light crosses the battlefield as Ren readies her wand. She is surrounded by the Voidfish’s light, the achingly familiar music swelling something deep and heroic and loving within her. See, there’s magic in a bard’s song, and there’s magic in a family.

(“You’re going to have to fight. And you’re going to  _ win _ !”)

Ren looks to her right and she sees Paloma, magic sparkling at her fingertips. There is Cassidy, too, bombs in hand, and Ash, laughing, and Brogden, reloading her portable turret. There are Redmond and Luca, too, drawing their swords, and the few members of the Liberation Brigade, with their purple handkerchiefs tied around their neck, for luck.

She looks to her left and sees June, wearing Ren’s old armor, holding the wand and knowing the spells that Ren taught her. They make eye contact. June nods, and Ren smiles.

“You ready, Junebug?”

The music swells.

“Whatever happens next, well,” says June, looking out over the Hunger, “I guess we’ll just have to find out together.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for reading! That's a wrap for Ren's backstory, and I hope you liked it! Please let me know your thoughts!!
> 
> (my document for this story ended up being exactly 69 pages, so, nice?)


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